20104/Complicated Matters of Family and Other Things

Complicated Matters of Family and Other Things
Date of Scene:	20 February 2025
Location:	Cable's Supple Leather Accented man Cave
Synopsis:	After escaping from Stryfe's minions, Cable brings Madelyne back to his bunker under the stables of the Xavier Institute, and Maddie finally has a chance to ask the questions that have been on her mind -- at least some of them.
Cast of Characters:	Cable, Madelyne Pryor

---

Cable has posed:
In the end, getting out of Genosha and away from the Mutant Liberation Front terrorists hunting them proved to be relatively easy.

If you ignore the ambush that nearly ended with Madelyne's capture. Or the fact that she nearly pulled down an entire ruin atop their heads. Or got shot in the leg. Or the massive mental turmoil that she was subjected to. Just push all of that to the side and it was a simple enough affair.

Though perhaps in Cable's eyes, it really was.

After that initial encounter, they never actually had to battle for their lives again and between his preparations to insure they had a suitable hiding spot and her own telepathic manipulations to blot out their presence, doubling back to the surface, getting out of the tunnel passages that run beneath Hammer Bay and triggering Cable's bodyslide technology was relatively straight forward.

With his present lack of a satellite perch from which to run said technology however, it is a little more limited in scope, requiring multiple jumps to cross thousands of miles. Nor is it quite just a blink of an eye either, given the systems need to recharge after each jump. Losing Greymalkin has certainly been something of an inconvenience to his operations.

Still, after multiple jumps, the unlike pair finally resolve back into existence, finding themselves in what appears to be an underground concrete bunker.

Half the chamber is laid out like some sort of futuristic armory, racks of sophisticated weaponry lining the walls while tables are full of technology that looks considerably more advanced then one would see elsewhere. And desk is set up nearby complete with a computer and a bank of monitors that seem to be hooked up to some sort of surveillance display that rotates through a number of different perspectives.

The other half of the room at least appears to have a few creature comforts including comfortable chairs and a sofa. A place to eat and sleep and a small kitchenette. The bare necessities perhaps, but it is better then nothing at all.

A stairwell leads up to a doorway that apparently leads out, though it appears to be secured by a number of sophisticated systems.

Cable doesn't exactly waste a lot of time as they reappear, seemingly unphased from the hours on the run, from the disorientation of popping out of existence in one place and reappearing in a completely different one.

Instead he simply crosses the room, hefting up his pack over his shoulder and dumping it on one of those work benches, laying out that oversized plasma cannon rifle beside it.

"We'll be safe here," he says casually. "When you're ready I can take you just about wherever you need to do, but laying low here for a little bit is probably a good idea," he asserts. "Take a load off and we can have another look at that injured leg," he suggests.

Apparently he isn't going to volunteer very much, despite everything that has happened. Just business-like as always. Just like a soldier that has completed his mission.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
Madelyne Pryor will fight.

She doesn't know if it's because of some programming that was installed along with her false memories or the fragment of the Phoenix that's inside her or her (or Jean's) innate willpower or some combination of all of those things. Despite all of her anger and doubt about her own existence, she'll fight until her last breath.

But it's really nice not to have to.

The bodyslides are disorienting, to say the least. The fact that they have to do so many of them to get where they're going -- which is apparently half-way around the world from Genosha -- doesn't improve matters.

So, she may not have had to fight for her life again, but she did take those breaks to sit down and breathe, to clear some dizziness and nausea, and to prepare herself for the next one.

She didn't demand to know where they were going in advance.

She doesn't know why, either. In fact, most the time it seems like the list of things she doesn't know just grows and grows, every single day.

Maybe it was because he had already risked his life repeatedly to save her. Maybe it was because she still had an image in her mind of holding him when he was a baby. Another 'false' memory, but...

... is it really 'false' if it's still real? Even if it's not her memory?

She still hadn't gotten her mind around it, despite all the time she's had to think on the way here, and now that they're safe -- really safe -- it's hard not to just... ask. It's hard not to blurt out all the questions that have been piling up like some kind of New York traffic jam.

Why did you call me your mother?
What were those memories?
Where do you come from?
Why were you taken away from me?
Why can't I remember?

Because, of all the scenarios she's run through, there are a couple that stand out as being the most likely explanations:

1) Everything she saw in Cable's mind is a lie. This whole thing is a setup. This bunker is a cell. She's being held against her will, and she doesn't even know it.

2) She once had a husband and a child, that child was taken from her, and those memories were erased. She had been happy, and someone stole that from her.

It hasn't yet occurred to her that Cable being from another time means that his past could be... different -- that somehow he could exist without being born.

But the more she dwelled on the second option, the angrier she was getting about it. It was bad enough that someone had created her for some purpose she didn't understand, had sent her off into the world, that she could as easily be an escaped, broken experiment as some ticking bomb without any idea what her trigger might be.

When they phased in, inside the bunker, Maddie couldn't help taking a stumbling, disoriented step and reaching out for what she was grateful ended up being a couch.

There's a sound -- an unpleasant sound -- that she chokes on, clearing her throat as she sinks onto the cushion and props an elbow on the arm of it, resting her head in her hand.

"Oof," she breathes out in a heavy breath, closing her eyes. "I'm... glad to be done with those."

She hadn't exactly been feeling great to begin with, from taking a tumble in the middle of a full-on sprint to having her leg shot to reeling from being trapped in a cage of her own mind and then leaping into his.

It's been a day.

Seconds pass, maybe a full minute, before she sweeps her hand up to flip her hair back behind her, out of her face. A sign, at least, that the nausea was abating. She blows out a heavy breath as she looks over at him.

"Can we... talk... for a minute?"

Cable has posed:
For the most part Cable plays things pretty close to the vest.

There are a whole host of reasons for that of course. Part of that is his very nature. He grew up in a constant state of war, where sometimes secrecy was the only reason that you survived. It tends to teach one of be pretty careful about what they chose to share and who they chose to share that information with.

Coming back to the past has not significantly changed that approach to things. In some ways it has only reinforced it. Because while the past might not be in a constant state of war like that time he comes from, in some ways that only makes it worse. He has gotten a glimpse at how things can be. And yet knows that somewhere between the here and now, and the when he comes from things will go to absolute hell.

It's part of what makes him so determined to prevent that.

Of course it goes deeper then that. Some of it is tied to being careful about reveallng too much about anyone's future. This is clearly not actually his timeline which means that his understanding of the events to come isn't necessarily relevant. And sharing what he knows has the potential to in effect start sending them down a bad path. One that will only lead to things growing worse. He has little interest in that.

But he has also discovered that people don't necessarily find it very comfortable to have him running around, not when they know about his origins. While both Scott and Jean seem to have slowly come to terms with the fact that they have future offspring like Rachel and to an extent, himself, running around, it has taken time.

Connections that existed in his reality clearly don't here and reminding people of that does not always go well.

So to be sure Cable has multiple reasons not to want to spend too much time discussing a future that may never be. At least not in the way that he knows it.

Though in fairness it isn't like he is exactly an open book when it comes to, well, anything.

He didn't choose to share with her exactly where he was bringing her and the clues of where they might be are scant indeed. The room is little more then a reinforced concrete basement, with no visible windows or exits aside from that solitary, secured door at the top of the stairway. It seems logical that the bank of monitors is displaying their surroundings, beyond this room which would suggest that they are on some sort of estate? Perhaps a school? Certainly there are a large number of teenagers who pass by those cameras and a number of them a recognizably mutants.

Which perhaps narrows down the possibilities of just where they could be considerably.

But again, the future soldier isn't volunteering anything, he isn't going to great lengths to set her mind at ease. Yes, he has saved her from being carried off by mutant crazies, one more group of people looking to use her like some sort of weapon, some sort of thing.

But he hasn't exactly been clear on the why. He hasn't been clear on what comes after. What comes next.

He is inscrutable. He is mysterious. And while he might not have intended to, he dropped a few bombshells during their escape from the Mutant Liberation Front and their plans for her. While he might have hoped that she missed the significance of them under the circumstances, that was probably never likely.

It is almost like he can feel the intensity of her gaze as he retrieves that medkit from the table, starting back towards her. He's not easy to read. Not telepathically with those shields locked in place. Nor by his facial expressions. But there is an ever so slight tightening of the jaw as she asks that simply question, the slightest of tensing.

He doesn't turn away though, instead simply dropping down to one knee at the far end of the couch, looking over her injured leg as he begins to pull various items from that pack.

"If you insist," he finally grudgingly allows.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
This man is a stranger.

Not a complete stranger, at least. Lorna had introduced them, after all.

Sort of.

'Cable.'

That's really all she knows about him -- or all she knew about him. She may not understand what she'd seen of his memories, but that didn't mean she hadn't seen it.

She didn't even really know his 'type' all that well. Strong. Silent. Stoic.

Soliders.

She's a pilot, but she's a commercial pilot. What she knows -- or what she thinks she knows -- about men is firmly rooted in cocky braggarts and show-offs. She may have scraped by a few minds like Cable's along the way, once she realized she had her powers, of course. Less shielded versions. But they were always so... focused.

Simple, in some ways.

Cable is not... simple.

She watches him as he moves, tracking his path to the medkit, to the couch, never once flinching away from him. In fact, if anything, she shifts to try to make things as easy as possible -- and prevent as much awkwardness as possible.

It's bad enough to have a strange man tending to your bare thigh, a hole through the pants burned away where the energy cut through them, along with whatever damage he'd had to do to get to the wound. It's another thing entirely if...

If you insist.

For a moment, then, she's quiet.

She seems to be considering her options, his word choice as much as her own. Is he... angry? At her specifically? Had she done something to him and she doesn't remember? Is he mad at her for not being there? Does he... blame her?

Or, like so many things she once thought were true, is it all in her head?

Maybe he's just a stranger, that none of what she thinks she knows is actually the truth, and he feels like he's already gone above and beyond in saving her life. The last thing he probably wants is for some random woman that's trapped in -- where even are they? -- to start being needy.

"Thank you. For what you've done for me."

She said it before, and now she says it again. But there's no heavy weight to it, no lingering gaze, no risk of feinting from emotion. It just bears repeating. She's grateful.

A beat passes.

Fear has never been her ally. Strength has always served her far better. So, rather than shying away, she watches him, that implacable expression and unreadable mind. And she asks the question she wants to ask.

"Who am I to you?"

Cable has posed:
There have been more then a few awkward conversations since he has returned from the future.

Or perhaps returned is the wrong term in this case. It became apparently fairly early on that while this might have been the era from which he was sent into the future to save his life as an infant, this is not the same timeline. It would be impossible afterall. In this timeline his father and mother haven't even met.

For the most part he does not make a particularly big deal about the fact that he isn't from this time. He doesn't go around announcing it, he has learned to be cautious about presuming because something happened in his timeline that the same will happen in this one.

He has had an advanced artificial intelligence unit at his disposal, to help him navigate the ever shifting probabilities. To help guide his actions to try and ensure that the horror that is his future doesn't come about in this timeline as well, though with the destruction of Greymalkin, he is flying more blind then ever.

While he was able to recover the 'Professor' processor after Stryfe managed to capture it and put it to his own ends, getting it operational again, putting together then kind of advanced resources necessary to truly make use of it is no small undertaking.

On the whole, discussions like this have rarely gone particularly well. Understandably so. Going up to people two decades his junior and explaining that they are his parents, or would have been his extended family under other circumstances is not always an easy or straight-forward conversation. Not everyone exactly welcomes then news.

Ironically, those who flatly disbelieve tend to be the easier to deal with. It's those that are just plainly uncomfortable. Who don't really know how to react.

Then there is the fact that Cable has been active in this timeline for several years now. And while he did seek out the X-Men, he did reveal his part to Scott and Jean and the others, he did not do the same for Madelyne. Even the fact that they share an association with the Brotherhood did nothing to change that fact. Even when Lorna brought her in to assist with the captured Tempo.

Part of that was deliberate.

Despite the circumstances of his birth, in his own timeline, he always considered Jean Grey more of his mother then the woman who actually gave birth to him.

That could easily seem harsh, cold and unforgiving. But then he has some call for that. The Madelyne Pryor of his own timeline is not the most stable of individuals. Perhaps with good cause, but it is difficult to argue that she has done anything but cause more harm then good.

Of course Cable well understands that this Madelyne is not necessarily the same as his own mother. But there still seems to be an inherent caution built into his reaction. To how he has chosen to handle their 'ties' in this reality.

So as he approaches her once more? His mind is locked up tight, those psychic shields firmly in place making him a virtual mental black hole, a simple... emptiness in the background. There is no real hesitation as he crouches, as he unwraps those makeshift field dressings he examines her wound, again those advanced tools that are so unlike modern medical devices appearing and disappearing into the case, not even bothering to reach for them as they instead casually float into reach in his own telekinetic grasp.

It is not at all clear if he is going to answer her at first, his expression a stoic, unreadable mask, not bothering to look up from his task.

Then his shoulders seem to rise and fall, as if in a silent sigh.

"In another time, you were the woman who gave birth to me."

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
... the woman who gave birth to me.

The words are being dissected like frogs in a high school science class as soon as they reach Madelyne's ears. She may not have the training of a military tactician, a spy, a soldier, or even a litigator, but she's a woman.

She understands the difference -- the significance -- between 'mother' and 'woman who gave birth' as easily as breathing, and to be fair, it lines up with the glimpses she saw in Cable's memories.

Madelyne, surrounded by demons.

Cable, being raised by Scott and Jean.

She didn't understand the specifics of what happened between those events. There weren't enough fragments to piece together a cohesive timeline. But there were enough impressions to understand the broad strokes -- that Cable had been taken away from her, first by that pale-faced man and then by her own husband.

She didn't understand the demons. Had she died and come back for revenge? To reclaim her son? Whatever the case, she didn't look particularly... motherly.

"But not the woman who raised you."

It's not a question, but it's spoken softly enough to be interpreted as that. At a minimum, it leaves her words open to correction.

Really, it might be understandable if she had a more severe reaction than that news. After all, how often does one encounter their biological son from the future? All things considered, she might even sound reasonable.

There's still so much math being done behind her eyes, though. Connections being made. Questions being formed.

"I saw..."

She's still, letting him work and only moving when necessary to facilitate the process.

"...you were... taken."

Her heart is pounding in her throat. She's trying to keep her composure, to be a good patient, to have patience with this conversation, despite how obvious it is that Cable has no interest in having it. At least... not with her. She's trying to choose her words, to avoid confrontation, to not let emotion creep up and color them, but it isn't easy. It's there in the fringes of her voice, the little tremor of mingling apprehension and anger.

"Was I... made to forget?"

Perhaps the assumption there is obvious. To a layperson, despite how often superheroes might have to deal with time and multi-verses, time is just... time. What happened yesterday, happened yesterday. If she really gave birth to this man, it either hasn't happened yet or she doesn't remember it. There aren't any other answers.

Cable has posed:
He could explain everything of course.

Explain how in his timeline she was created for one singular purpose -- to merge the Summers and Grey DNA to create a phenomenally powerful mutant. That a monster named Mr. Sinister -- Nathaniel Essex once upon a time -- manipulated events and when things went wrong, when it became clear that he would not so easily be allowed to claim the fruits of his labor, he infected young Nathan Summers with a techno-organic virus.

He could explain that alternate timeline sister came back from the distance future, a new name, a new face, and promised that she could save him. Give him a purpose. That the people who ultimately raised him were indeed the two consciousnesses of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, projected into bodies in the future to watch over him, to teach him and train him. To prepare him for the war that he would have to fight.

There's a whole lot that he could say.

He's just not at all certain how much of it truly is relevant. Events did not play out the same here. They seem unlikely to play out the same here. So it becomes an open question of whether revealing too much does more harm then good.

But he last question makes him pause for a moment, that diligence in attending to her wound breaking for just a moment as Cable lifts his gaze to study her for a moment, consideration mirrored there in the one good eye -- or at least the one human eye -- that he still has.

It seems that it is a thought that he hadn't really considered. That someone went to elaborate lengths to make history seem different then it truly is. That this woman is indeed his birth mother. That the Scott Summers he knows is indeed his father. It's an interesting problem to consider. And for a moment the implacable future soldier does just that. He considers it...

...and almost as fast seems to dismiss it. It plays out there, not in the expression on his face. He is still too buttoned down for that it would seem. But again in the flicker of emotion in that blue orb as it studies her.

Then his gaze lowers, his hands resume their work, swapping out devices that float freely around him on unseen forces, only disappearing back into the pack when he's done with them.

As he is apparently done considering her question.

"Possible," he allows. Because it is. They are dealing with some extremely powerful, extremely brilliant mutants. Mr. Sinister, Apocalypse, all the resources they have at their disposal. It is not completely outside the realm of possibility.

"But unlikely," he quickly concludes. "The amount of resources it would take to not only change a few people's memories, but change every single person's memories, to change all the records, every possible hint of the truth would press even these people's abilities beyond what is likely," he adds.

There are forces out there, ones that can manipulate reality, change it to suit them. But the chances that they would choose this particular event seems... remote. Still, Cable can't be sure and he's practical enough not to close any door entirely. Even if he probably should in this case.

"Temporal mechanics demands that there are infinite variations to the time stream out there. The much more likely scenario is that when I travelled back from the time I was raised, I simply ended up in a different version of the past. One where my mother and father never met and so I was never born."

He says it matter of fact.

But at least he does refer to her, even if just in passing, as his mother.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
...Relevant?!

God, how she wishes she could reach in and feel what he's feeling, know what he's thinking. It's so much harder to have a conversation with someone when you don't already know what they're going to say before they say it.

She would say that everything is relevant. Every last scrap of information. She has nothing -- a bunch of memories that aren't even hers. No family. No purpose. No idea where she came from.

To find out she has a child out there somewhere? One that grows up into... this?

Possible.

Her anger flares hotter and brighter, like he'd taken gasoline and dumped it directly onto the fire that was already burning.

But unlikely... Temporal mechanics... I simply ended up in a different version of the past...

A different version of the past. Is that more likely? That's a pretty hard pill to swallow -- that she should just forget that she might have a baby out there somewhere because it's probably a different version of the timeline.

Then again, she doesn't have any stretch marks. No memories at all of anything like that. She's pretty sure a lot of her nightmares are really combinations of her implanted memories and whatever was really happening to her -- like the big tubes that show up in the crashed airplane. Never once has she dreamed of having a baby or a husband.

Of course, thanks to her already overzealous subconscious, that's likely to change at this point.

...Fine.

Madelyne takes in a deep breath and blows it out slowly, trying to keep hold of that anger, to be willing to keep her mind open to what Cable had to say instead of jumping to conclusions and letting rage and hate steer.

Maybe if she focuses on something else for a few minutes.

"Why... are you here? Why did you come back?"

She pushes herself up a little further, those bright green eyes framed by crimson hair still watching him, taking in every detail she can like it's the first time.

And it is the first time, in a lot of ways. The first time without all the pressure of running for their lives, without having to do so in the dark, in the tunnels.

Maybe she can't get into his mind. And for the most part, she'd stopped trying. It was obvious he didn't want her in there, though she couldn't really help how her awareness wrapped around him a bit like a snake coiling or sharks circling, waiting for an opening. She was too curious, too desperate for answers to stop waiting and watching for the slightest hint that he was willing to open up again.

Cable has posed:
He sees it flare up there in her eyes for just a moment.

That fire.

He doesn't need to be in her head to know what she's thinking. He doesn't need to be in her head to see just how brightly that fire is burning inside of her, that anger. The possibility that she had a life, a husband and a child that had been taken from her. That she had been made to forget. That the entire world had been made to forget.

Maybe he recognizes the danger in that anger. Maybe he sees a hint of what his mother -- his real mother -- became in the timeline that he actually game from. He could have decided to deny the likelihood of her raised possibility because of that. To dampen down that anger.

While Cable might be extremely buttoned down, while his mind might be the next best thing to a completely sealed, high-security vault at the moment, there is something about him that suggests he's big on facing down hard truths directly. That he doesn't pull back or shy away or anything else for that matter.

That if he felt for just a moment that some elaborate con had been pulled, that reality had been manipulated, he wouldn't hesitate to tug at every last thread to reveal the truth. And that he wouldn't deny her the chance to do the same, even if it risked the chance -- maybe even the certainty -- that it sent her spiraling back down a dark path.

He seems to be nearing an end, at least when it comes to attending to her wound, the last few passes of the latest device in his hand seeming to dull down the pain to nothing more then a slight ache, the injury already feeling like it happened days, even weeks early. The memory of pain as much as pain itself.

But then the things that scar her, truly scar her quite clearly aren't of the physical. It isn't that blast to her thigh that brings such fire to her eye, that brings that rage to the surface until it is all but obvious. Until he is almost surprised that she doesn't catch on fire, or at least radiate heat from her flesh.

Those are injuries of the mind. Those are injuries of having her reality torn down and not really given much to build it back up.

Again, he pauses for a moment. A moment of consideration. It's not as if he's above lying. There aren't many things he won't do if he feels that they are required.

Then his gaze lifts to hers once more, lips pursed, some of that consideration faintly visible there as he studies her for a moment. Almost as if weighing what answer he should give. How much truth she can take.

Then a faint, almost imperceptible shrug seems to ripple across those massive shoulders and the last of those hovering medical instruments floats its way back into the waiting kit. Though he doesn't immediately rise, instead simply lingering there, crouched. Studying her. And seems to come to some conclusion.

"The future is a bleak place and the seeds for the clusterfuck it has become are laid out in this time period," he says flatly. Some of it is due to the machinations of the monster who made me like this," he adds, casually flicking a finger against the metal that dominates one of his arms, a little ting resonating from the impact. Then he hesitates for just a moment before conceding, "The monster who created you, at least in my timeline."

"Mostly though, I'm here to stop his former master. The monster who has run roughshod over the world for four thousand years already. The one who seizes control, makes life a living hell for those that remain in the future. I'm here to stop Apocalypse from reigning in the future if that is at all possible."

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
Some of it is due to the machinations of the monster who made me like this... The monster who created you...

"The metal... I felt it."

It felt like it was going to consume her, strangle her, when she was in his mind. Compassionate green eyes, still fiery with the simmering flames of her own anger, shift to the arm that Cable flicks and then back to his face.

I'm here to stop Apocalypse...

This should be the most important phrase. This should be the thing that dominates the rest of the conversation. She should be pitching in to help, asking what she can do to contribute.

Instead, the question that slips past her lips is much more selfish than that. Self-serving, absolutely. But also vengeful.

She still hasn't gotten her mind around how the man who just finished healing her leg fits into her life -- if he fits into her life. What happens when they part ways? Do they become pen pals? Friends? He's obviously too old to need a mother, and she's not it, anyway.

Hell, even if she had given birth to him in this timeline, from the sounds of it, she wouldn't really qualify as that, anyway. That would be Jean.

Because of course it would be.

Still, in some version of reality, in some dimension, the person -- or people -- who created her also stole her baby and did something to him. If she didn't already have a reason to want revenge, she does now.

"Who created me?"

She reaches a hand down to slide her fingers across the wound, feeling it as she sits up more fully and tentatively bends her knees so she can sit on the edge of the sofa more appropriately.

"Who did that to you?"

Her words are ice cold, and her intent behind them can't possibly be mistaken. It doesn't take a telepath to hear the question she doesn't ask -- Who am I going to murder?

Cable has posed:
He doesn't need to be able to read her thoughts to see the directions that her mind immediately goes.

He can't say that he is surprised. Not really. He can't even say that he blames her when it comes right down to it. He is, afterall, first, foremost, and always, a soldier. He has spent his entire life, from his childhood on, fighting a war fifteen hundred years in the future. Fighting for his Clan, fighting for his future to be sure.

But most of all just fighting for his survival and the survival of their race as they know it.

It's fair to see him as being on the side of the angels. But that doesn't mean that everything he does is about justice, it isn't about right and wrong. Survival is, at its core, a whole lot more basic then that. And he certainly knows more then a little about vengeance, about that hunger to see pain and suffering and death brought to those that have wronged him, wronged those that he cares about.

Wars are rarely neat and never pretty. And they almost always involve atrocities committed by both sides, no matter how 'right' one side might be compared to the other.

So he recognizes that emotion in her. Recognizes the fact the path that her mind instinctively goes down, that despite her curiosity about his reasons for being in this time, for travelling back from everything he knew to the time period when he was actually born, he understands why her attention, her thoughts would focus on that passing reference to the one that created her.

At least where he comes from.

Cable finally rises to his feet, finally gathers up that medkit, that brief display of power nowhere in evidence now as he plucks the medkit up from beside him, as he walks it back to it's place on one of those tables where his various gear -- at least in this particular safehouse -- is arrayed.

He offers no immediate response, again, perhaps weighing whether sharing any of this will do more harm then good. And perhaps, if it really is his responsibility, his right to make that determination. To weigh and judge her motives, her intentions.

She looks like his mother. At least what he knows of her, what he has been told of her. What he has seen of her from old records, carefully preserved in his time. But she's not his mother. Not really. Not anymore then the Scott and Jean of this reality.

But that doesn't mean that they can't share a kinship, of a sort.

Maybe that's enough to decide him in the end. Maybe that tips the final determination in favor of giving her the answer she seeks. Or at least a version.

"I don't know who created you. Not in this timeline," he stresses quietly.

He could leave it at that, with half an answer. But he doesn't.

"But in my reality, my timeline, you were created by a man once known as Nathaniel Essex. A brilliant man in his own way, but one who had become a slave to the mutant monster known as Apocalypse. And in conspiring to break free from him, he created you, Madelyne Pryor, to try and manipulate events to destroy his one time master," he offers up quietly.

"The real Nathaniel Essex is long dead of course. But he lives on. Known today as Mr. Sinister."

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
"Essex."

She's says it like she's tasting something foul.

"...Sinister."

A name.

After years of trying to figure out who she is and why she exists, the pieces have slowly fallen into place. Magneto told her she was a clone of Jean Grey. Fabian told her she had an inactive x-gene, that she was fueled entirely by her fragment of the Phoenix Force. And now Cable had given her a name of who made her.

Not just a name. Cable still knows more. How much, she isn't sure, but she's positive that the awful images she saw in his mind are related to this story -- to Sinister and Apocalypse. There's bound to be more.

Where to find them? How to hurt them?

Or is that why Cable's here? At least in part?

Perhaps they've come full circle, then. Perhaps the best way for her to dig further into this is to work with her --

...with Cable.

"What did -- "

Not 'I.'

It's hard not to cling to that -- the purpose having a child would give her. Even if she was designed for that reason, even if it was all some elaborate scheme that she played right into the hands of... some version of her created a life, and that life is right there in front of her.

But he's not hers to claim.

"What did your mother name you? I... doubt it was Cable."

There's something bittersweet in her voice, bordering just on the edge of humor, like she can't imagine a universe in which she decides her baby's name is something as crude as that. Besides, from what little she knows of the X-Men, they all have names like that... Cyclops, Storm, Gambit...

Cable has posed:
Certainly Cable has more then a little reason to hate Sinister, maybe as much as she does.

Afterall, he's the one who is ultimately responsible for infected him with the techno-organic virus that he has spent his entire life battling. He's the one who insured that he would never fully manifest his abilities, that much of his potential would remain locked away, set to battling the virus that would otherwise overwhelm him. He's the one who insured that Cable would be raised amongst his family -- both by blood and extended -- and instead be raised in a far off future, forced to battle and scrap for mere survival.

Oh yes, he has a lot of reasons to hate Sinister.

And yet he very distinctly said that he is here to deal with Apocalypse, not Sinister. He is here to battle the same ancient being that Sinister sought to create him to fight. He has indeed come full circle, and in some ways is even seeking to serve the will of the man responsible for his birth afterall.

But that's what seeing just how the world turns out will do to you. In seeing what an immense threat that Apocalypse is to both human and mutant kinds. That despite everything he was put through, what those individuals he cares about was put through, he makes no bones about what his priorities are. What they remain.

Sinister is a monster. He's a threat.

But he pales in comparison to Apocalypse. And like any good soldier, Cable has to prioritize the greater threat, focus on the real enemy. Even if the idea of getting a measure of payback has more then a little appeal.

In that they might be very different.

But she shifts topics. She doesn't pursue the obvious and his note of caution, that there is no guarantee that circumstances are the same here remains unstated, at least one more time and as he pads back towards where the redhead that looks so much like his mother sits, he offers up an answer without hesitation.

Maybe he is of the belief that she merits that much.

"Nathan," he says simply. Then he gives a slight shake of his head. He rarely shares even that much. To most he's simply Cable. But maybe she deserves just a little bit more then most.

"Nathan Christopher Charles Summers."

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
"It's a good name."

Her voice is soft, and there's the faintest curl of Madelyne's lips into a smile -- a glimpse of what she might have been like if her life had taken a different path. A kinder path. She's pretty when she smiles. Not in the horrific way the Goblin Queen is, but in the softer, kinder way Jean Grey is.

She might even have been able to cope with the knowledge that she was a clone, if she'd been able to keep her family -- her support system, her reason for making every good decision in her life. But without them? Fueled only by hatred and the need for revenge? It's also easy to see how the Goblin Queen rose from the ashes that were once the woman who birthed him.

The names are easy enough to at least take a guess at.

Charles for Charles Xavier.

Christopher must have been significant to Scott.

Which meant 'Nathan' would likely have been important to her. Did she really name him after her creator? That's... dark, on so many levels. And if that's true, it's no wonder he prefers to use the name Cable.

Despite that, though -- if one can look past the obvious pitfalls -- it is a good, strong name for an obviously strong man, physically and emotionally.

There are still so many more questions to be asked.

About Sinister. About Apocalypse. About his childhood and the metal she saw when she was inside his mind. Was that what happened? He'd tapped his arm... was it consuming him, like it tried to consume her?

They could spend hours talking. Days. And Madelyne still might not be out of questions.

But for now?

For now, she looks around the room, taking it in really for the first time as her fingers idly touch her exposed leg.

Her eyes linger on the workbench, the huge cannon that rests there, the electronics. They shift to the security feed. The kids walking past -- some of them obviously mutants. The yard. The edge of the school.

She could take three guesses where they'd ended up, but she suspected she wouldn't need all three.

She doesn't belong here any more than she belongs on Asteroid M. She's not a mutant, if Fabian is to be believed. Not in the sense that his little power-booster would work for her. Not if what defines a mutant is an activated x-gene.

And yet, she has nowhere else to go.

Stryfe's people are looking for her on Genosha. She'll go crazy trying to hide on Asteroid M indefinitely. She's proven that she's not strong enough to defend herself -- not when they're already prepared to counter her.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
But staying here feels...

... well ...

... time-limited, at best.

At some point, she would wear out her welcome here. She may look like Jean Grey. She may look like the Madelyne Pryor who gave birth to Nathan. But in truth, she's neither of those women. She has none of their experiences. None of their memories. Nothing that makes them... unique.

"Thank you, Nathan," she offers after a moment, those green eyes shifting up to him. "For everything you've done for me. Maybe one day I'll be able to repay your kindness."

But then she's setting her hands on her thighs and pushing herself back to her feet, carefully testing her weight on that now barely injured limb.

"I would, for what it's worth, like to help you. If you'll have my help. I..."

She seems to search for the words she wants, eyes shifting to the side for just a moment before returning to his.

"I don't know what happened to the woman who gave birth to you after they took you from her." Even as she speaks, the images of herself surrounded by demons dances in her mind. She can only imagine what would happen to her if they took her child. She can feel how close she is to wanting to watch the world burn every day, even without that as a catalyst. "But in case she never told you... I'm sure that she was very proud."

Maybe they're meaningless words to him -- a placation by a woman he barely knows and has more than enough reason to suspect of bad behavior. But they seem to mean something to her.

"I'd like to talk to you more, but I should probably..."

Her eyes flicker towards the thoroughly locked door.

Probably... what? Go off on her own? Get a cab? Go knock on the front door of the Mansion and see what happens?

Even she doesn't look certain what she'll do, yet.

Whatever it is, she can't live in this bunker, so she'll have to decide on something sooner rather than later.

It might as well be now.