Chapter Text
1963
Pain. He was in so much pain. Sean had known he’d eventually be killed. He’d seen it happen to others, small experiments were done until the scientists decided that they couldn’t get anymore out of the mutant alive. At first he’d tried to fight it, but now, he was in so much pain that he wanted it to end. His mouth had been cut open and his throat too. He knew that they intended to go further and that it would kill him.
Instead of giving him an anesthetic that would knock him out, they’d only given him a drug to keep him immobilized (along with what they already gave to keep his mutation damped). It didn’t dull the pain and Sean could feel with agonizing precision everything that was being done to him. He could feel the scientists poking around inside him. When he’d first been captured he never would have thought he’d be in the position where he’d want them to kill him, but he did, more than anything. He just wanted the pain to end, and death seemed like the only way to get that.
Sean’s vision was starting to blur. Everything around him seemed to be taking on this white sheen until Sean couldn’t make out anything anymore. Was this what dying was like? Was this the “white light” that people who’d had near death experiences talked about? He didn’t get a chance to think about it anymore however, as he was suddenly met with a searing burst of pain to the back of his head and he blacked out.
2011
Theresa had long since learned that in her line of work there was a lot of shit. Sometimes that shit involved people getting shot at other times it apparently involved finding partially dissected teenagers in alleyways. Partially dissected teenagers with their throat and mouth sliced open in a way that made Theresa wince and rub at her own throat. Because that’s the way someone would cut her open if they got the chance.
The boy was unconscious, but breathing, something which given his condition Theresa thought was pretty miraculous. He couldn’t have been lying in the alley for long then. Gently, and taking painstaking care of his throat, Theresa picked up the kid (he was way too light to be healthy), mutant or human didn’t matter to her at this point, she was taking him back to X-Factor headquarters whether her teammates liked it or not.
In the end it was only Madrox who made any noise about Theresa bringing the kid in. Monet raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything, she just helped Theresa get the kid into a bed and started on taking care of his injuries as best as they could.
“You know we aren’t going to be able to treat his injuries properly,” Monet said. “They’re too severe. He needs a hospital.”
“Can we take him to a hospital?” Theresa asked. “If he’s a mutant, taking him to a regular hospital is out of the question.”
“What makes you think he’s a mutant?” Jamie asked from the doorway.
Theresa sighed. “His injuries are very specific. Too specific. And too surgical. They’d make a lot of sense to be on a mutant like me or my da.”
“But they’re not on you or Sean, Terry,” Monet pointed out.
“That doesn’t rule out some other sort of vocal mutation.”
“She has a point,” Jamie said. “Monet can you poke around in his head? See what you can find out?”
Monet hesitated. She would rather not poke around in someone’s mind without consent if work didn’t call for it. However she realized the necessity for it here, even if the kid woke up he wouldn’t be able to speak due to his injuries. So poke around she did, and what she found made her sick to her stomach.
“He is a mutant,” Monet said, withdrawing from the boys mind. “Not from this universe. Times don’t seem to line up either. I couldn’t give you a date from the technology I saw, but it was not modern.”
“Did you get a name?” Theresa asked.
Monet shook her head. “I didn’t look for too much. His surface memories were enough to give me what I needed and I’d rather ask before I dig any deeper.”
“And I’ll hazard a guess that those surface memories weren’t the nicest,” Theresa said.
“No they really weren’t,” Monet replied with a grimace. “He’d been captured by his universes Bolivar Trask. They were experimenting on him.”
“Okay that settles it he needs a doctor.”
“Like he didn’t before?”
Theresa glared at Monet. “I’m calling my da, maybe he can get Hank McCoy to come down. If we’re lucky he won’t be too busy to help.”
“We shouldn’t involve the X-Men.”
Now it was both Theresa and Monet glaring at Jamie.
“So do you want to give this kid stitches yourself?” Theresa asked, gesturing towards the bed. “Hank McCoy is the closest thing to mutant doctor we have. If we want this kid to survive we need him.”
Jamie sighed. “Fine, maybe they can take him off our hands too. We’re running out of room here.”
“Maybe they can,” Theresa said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “We won’t know until we call them.”
With that Theresa left the room. She was less surprised than she thought she would be to find Layla leaning against the wall across from the doorway. “And I suppose you knew about this.”
“No actually, I don’t know anything about him. He doesn’t fit into anything I know.”
Theresa sighed. “And here I was hoping you might be useful.” She dialed her father’s cell number, she figured it would be a safer bet than just calling the Institute directly.
Sean was at the airport, he had ten minutes before the flight started boarding, that was if everything was on schedule and not delayed by the weather. It had been raining steadily since he’d arrived, and hadn’t let up anywhere he’d been. Not on Muir Island and not on the mainland. Sean leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes, thinking that maybe he could at least close his eyes briefly before it was time for his flight to board. He hadn’t done much actual sleeping on Muir Island. Just being there had left him too keyed up to make any sleep he got particularly restful. He was starting to drift into a sort of half doze when his phone rang and jerked him awake again.
“H’llo?”
“Da?”
Sean sat up a bit straighter. “Terry, it’s good to hear from you. It’s been awhile since you called.”
“I’ve been preoccupied with... everything that’s been going on.”
“Understandable, everyone’s had a lot to deal with. You sound on edge. What’s going on?”
“A lot.” Theresa sighed. “I found this kid in an alley half a block from X-Factor headquarters. His throat and mouth had been cut open. He’s a mutant, and Monet thinks he’s from an alternate universe.”
That got a sigh from Sean as well. “What else do you know?”
“He was experimented on by Bolivar Trask. That’s what tipped Monet off that he probably wasn’t from our universe.”
“You should call up to the institute, ask Hank to come down since I’m guessing the kid needs medical attention. I’m in Scotland, but I’ll come down as soon as I can. Try and get the kid’s name if ya haven’t already.”
“He’s been unconscious and Monet didn’t want to dig too deep without his consent.”
“Fair enough. I’ll call you when I get in.”
“Alright, where are you coming in to? I can meet you.”
Sean glanced towards the gate, they were starting to board and he got to his feet. “I’m not sure, I’m going to change flights see if I can get something more direct. Right now I have a stopover in Montreal and then I come into Westchester.”
They exchanged goodbyes and Sean hung up the phone. Making his way away from the gate back to the ticket desks to see if he could get his flight changed last minute. It would be just as easy to meet Hank at X-Factor and give him the information he’d found then. It was just a detour.
“So what’s the verdict?” Jamie asked once Theresa dropped the phone from her ear.
“The verdict is that my da is in Scotland and we’ll have to call the X-Men directly,” Theresa said.
“He’ll still be coming here though I’m assuming.”
“He said he would,” Theresa replied.
“Did he have any thoughts on who the kid might be?”
“No why would he,” Theresa said, starting to dial the number for the Xavier Institute. “Why would any of us know this kid? Especially if, like Monet said, he’s from another universe.”
Theresa brought the phone up to her ear, signally to Jamie that their conversation was over.
Jamie sighed and walked back into the bedroom.
The phone rang twice before someone picked up. “I really hope you’re Sean.”
“Different Cassidy, I did just speak to my da though he’s on his way back now. Hank McCoy?”
“Yes, my apologies for not-”
“It’s fine,” Theresa interrupted. “We need you down at X-Factor. We found a young mutant with his throat and mouth cut open. He needs medical care and we can’t take him to a hospital.”
There was rapid shuffling on Hank’s end before he spoke again. “I really need to be here when your father get’s back, I can send Emma to-”
“No we need you, Monet could get him into a hospital but that’s not what we need.” Theresa took a deep breath. “Monet went into his head, to find out if he was a mutant, since he hasn’t woken up. What she found was that this kid is from an alternate universe where he was being experimented on by Bolivar Trask.”
There was a clatter on the other end of the line. “I’ll be down shortly.”
“Thank you.”
“What have you done to care for him?”
“We’ve wrapped his throat to the best of our abilities and put bandages on his mouth to keep the skin together. He needs stitches, they pulled him apart.”
“How’s his breathing?”
Theresa peered into the room. “It seems to be alright, but I’m not in the room with him at the moment.”
“I’m going to have Emma come with me. I have nothing against Monet, but Emma’s powers are more refined and precise, and from what you’ve told me a gentle touch would be the best thing. I’m on my way down, keep me updated on his condition.”
Theresa nodded before realizing that this was a phone conversation and Hank couldn’t see her. “I’ll do that.”
“Good. We’ll be there in approximately an hour and a half.”
Theresa nodded again out of habit. “Alright. The door will be unlocked when you arrive just come right in.”
There was a click as Hank hung up the phone. Theresa let out a long breath, staring at her phone for a moment before sticking it back into her jacket pocket.
“Hank will be here with Emma Frost in about an hour and a half,” she announced, walking back into the bedroom.
“We don’t need Emma,” Monet muttered.
“You think he’ll last that long?” Rahne asked, appearing at the door after Theresa.
Theresa crossed her arms. “Well I’d certainly prefer it if he didn’t die in my bed.”
Hank and Emma made it down to the X-Factor headquarters in forty five minutes. Monet was waiting for them downstairs, while Theresa and Rahne were up in Theresa’s bedroom with the boy.
“How is he?” Emma asked.
“Alive,” Monet replied, leading the two X-Men up the stairs to Theresa’s bedroom where the boy was. “Still not awake. He may have taken a blow to the head when he… fell into our universe.”
“I’ll be able to tell if there’s head trauma,” Emma said.
Hank cleared his throat. “We should focus on the boy’s other injuries first however.”
While Hank set about stitching the boy’s injuries, Emma kept the boy unconscious. At Monet’s and Theresa’s instance Emma had promised not to dig around in the boy’s head until he was conscious and able to consent, and she had agreed easily enough. She wasn’t Charles, who had a bad habit of using other people’s minds as convenient data banks. She did however, take what she could glean from the surface of his mind. The boy didn’t have any shields that she could see though she could sense that at the very least he’d known a telepath before, and there was a fogginess that would indicate concussion, but it wasn’t serious. What interested Emma most were the names that were floating around in the forefront of his mind. Bolivar Trask, Angel Salvadore, Azazel, and her own, Emma Frost. A few light taps and she had the boys name as well as a few very disconcerting images of this other universe’s version of herself.
When Hank finished stitching up the boy’s injuries Emma withdrew from the boy’s head. He was still unconscious, Emma doubted she had really needed to go into the boy’s mind to keep him unconscious, but it was always a good precaution when surgery was involved.
“He should be alright,” Hank said, addressing Theresa and Monet who had both remained in the room. “The wounds are as clean as they can be. As long as they stay that way chance of infection is relatively low. He’ll need to be monitored, but I suggest he stay here, at least for a while. Emma what’s your prognosis concerning head trauma.”
“He certainly has a concussion, though not a severe one, and from what I saw on the surface he undoubtedly has PTSD. I feel this should be common sense but I’ll say it anyways: He should not be left alone. He will panic when he wakes up.”
“Anything else?” Theresa asked.
“Yes actually,” Emma said, turning to look at Theresa. “I found his name.”
Theresa stared back at Emma. “Why are you looking at me?”
“Because his name is Sean Cassidy.”