hate me for breathing without you, [au & rw]
Before her mind could truly form cogent thoughts she knew that she had awoken in a hospital room. Horror crept up the back of her throat like black copper as the sterile scent of disinfectant burnt her nostrils, the taste of latex slick on the back of her throat. Disorientated she tried to piece together what had happened in the moment before she’d blacked out. What she remembered was fuzzy: One moment she'd been walking along the hallways of Xaviers and the next her cheekbone had hit the carpet, her arms were twisted up behind her back, she could feel the rough patches on their palms, the calluses on their fingers as they secured her wrists with cable tie. Then the sting of a syringe in her backside. It was obvious to her that they had to be involved with the disappearances somehow, but while they had been fast and efficient, they couldn’t have been fast enough to escape the notice of those who had their partners snatched out from behind them.

Groggily she pushed those thoughts away, what mattered now was that she find the others, they had to be here somewhere, maybe in rooms just like hers. There was a tube up her nose, taped to her upper lip. Coughing, Jo took hold of it in one shaking hand and tugged it experimentally. Nausea crested up her torso. Gritting her teeth Jo yanked the tube and felt it slide up through the back of her nasal cavity, making her cough and splutter until it was out. Afterwards she lay there for a few minutes panting, sweat was already beading on her forehead and sliding down her neck and she was so tired all of a sudden. That was odd. Jo knew she was in peak physical condition, her mutation made sure of that. Feeling giddy and hot Jo shoved herself to her elbows only to hear a sudden ringing in her ears.

In place of her flat stomach was a bump.

A rough yell bit the back of her throat and she choked, trying to suck in a breath of air at the same time. Fear filled her veins with icy water.

"Tobias..." she called his name weakly, forcing her gaze away from her pregnant belly and about the room, horrified tears filling them. "Tobias!"

There was no answer. No doctors. No one.

Then the pain came in a horrible and crushing wave. Jo felt a rush of water between her legs and sobbed hotly, trying to push herself up in the raked bed. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening it made no sense and-- oh God another swell of pressure passed through her, her breathing stalled and the walls closed in a little. She couldn’t do this, she didn’t know how, no one had ever told her what to do, there were no staff around, there should have been a doctor there, there should be someone there to help her but there was no one, no one and she was completely alone. It was a feeling she was used to, she had been alone from a young age, her father had never been around, she didn’t even know who he was and even if her mother had been in a fit mental state to have a conversation about him Jo wasn’t sure she would have ever divulged the information out of fear that her daughter might leave to find him perhaps, maybe he would have been a better father than she had ever been a mother, maybe that scared Kimberly. Jo didn’t care. Even after coming to Xavier’s as a young teen she had felt alone, she’d had friends and she’d fit in no matter what school she attended, she was a star athlete, on all the teams all the time but she felt removed from the normal kids, detached by two paces at all times. Even with Tobias she knew she was distant sometimes, it was protection, she had to protect herself from getting hurt, from being crushed under someone’s heel but now, in this sterile white room with no one, not a soul, she felt jagged shard of ice plunge through her chest at the realisation that she was finally, truly alone when she needed her friends and what little family she had the most.

"Tobias!" Jo couldn’t help but scream for him again; no matter what fights they had, no matter how angry they were with one another they were always there when it came down to it, when there was a crisis Tobias was always there for her so why not now? "I’m not-- I’m not ready!" she gasped, fingers digging into the bed beneath her when pain struck again.

It was happening too fast, far too fast and she felt as though she was going to pass out from the pain at any moment. Should she push now? Should she wait? She wanted to push, her body was telling her to but she was scared, so scared of what was going to happen now, she wasn’t ready for children, she wasn’t ready for a family and what if she was as evil to this poor defenceless baby as her mother had been to her? What if she screamed at it and chased it and made it fear for its life in their own home? What if Tobias left? What if he already had? Where was he? All the questions were burning through her, flaring up with every contraction that seized her in its grasp and she pushed, fighting through the pain, forcing herself to bear it. Her back arched, her head tipped back, her scream turned bestial and raw, her skin red and veins bulging. Nothing could ever be as agonising as this. Nothing.

A wet thud heralded the end and Jo dissolved into exhausted tears, faint and feeling sick she slumped back against the bed, her eyes closing, tears streaking her face. There was blood and crying and everything hurt, the world was blurring into a mess of colours and smells and something was wrong, so wrong. Jo gripped the edges of the hard bed and wrenched herself up as best she could only to lose her balance and topple right onto the floor, into the blood with a hard jolt that shuddered through her bones and muscles. There was something on the floor. The baby. It was still and silent. Jo felt the world crumble. No. No, no, no, no. After all that it couldn’t be-- she couldn’t cope with-- Jo wriggled across the wet floor on her elbows but she already knew that the tiny budble on the floor wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing, there was a blue tinge to it that made her insides burn and suddenly she wanted it back, she wanted it to be alive again. "I didn’t mean it--" she creaked, reaching long fingers out to touch it’s round little face; she hadn’t been ready but she hadn’t meant that she wanted this. A broken moan shuddered up her throat and she covered her face with a bloody hand unable to move or speak or feel, nothing but the anguish. So much so that she didn’t even notice the walls melting into the floor, the room evaporating around her.

Weak hands trying to rise to her stomach before the pain of moving and the dizziness over came her when Jo woke up with a scream. Tears stung her eyes, sweat made her clothes cling to her body. For a few minutes she lay there panting, a headache manifesting itself instantly. It seemed like she’d been asleep but it still felt so real, there was still a sting of disinfectant at the back of her throat, a clean clinical scent clinging to her senses. Closing her eyes she tried to get her breath back and refocus. There was an IV in her arm; she was in her own room. It made no sense. Scowling she cracked her eyes open and reached out a limp, unsteady hand for the PDA on her bedside table. Jo needed answers but she was too weak to move just yet.

[ narrative ]