fandomtownies | Caritas- Tuesday

..

Late in the evening, after getting back to Fandom, getting that drink with Tony, then showering and changing into normal people clothes, Jessica decided that the past week had been way too messed up and she needed more than just the one drink.

"Hi. I need enough alcohol in me to make me forget everything I have ever known. And my metabolism is crazy good, so it's going to need a lot," she said as she settled in at the bar. "I'm completely serious about all of that. This is not me joking."

"And it's Russian vodka for you," Kitty said, getting the bottle immediately. "What happened?"

"Went to Battleworld. Died. Got better? Barely got out before it exploded," Jessica said. "The actual best part of the past week is actually that I was apparently dead almost the entire time. How messed up is that?"

"Probably not the first time I've heard something like that," Kitty admitted, pouring a glass and just leaving the bottle in front of Jessica. "Are you okay? Aside from the totally understandable need to make your liver suffer?"

"Well, I've got a scar from where Carol Danvers blew a huge hole in my chest, and I need to run tests to make sure her boss didn't harvest my organs," Jessica said. "And that's not counting the fact that if I hadn't been killed, there's a small chance I could have prevented the rest of it, but it probably would have happened anyway. I really don't know if that makes me fee more horrified about my failure or about the meaninglessness of my actions. Drinks will help me decide."

"...Okay let's go back to Carol and the organ harvesting part," Kitty said, eyes wide.

"I was called to Battleworld and a decent argument was made for me to get intel on one of the barons there who might have been planning to take over. Some guy named Sinister," Jessica explained. "I was in his castle for like ten minutes and some really powerful version of Carol Danvers who has had clearly pulled into his control somehow found me and blasted right through me. I woke up a week later with blood and tissue samples all around me in a lab. I'm pretty sure they came from me."

"I know about that guy. Sounds about right for him," Kitty said, sympathetic. "How'd you get out?"

"Tony Stark was concerned since I'd been gone for a week, so he tracked me down," Jessica said. "We tried to get a feel for the situation after we met up, but the place was chaos. We just barely got a portal back here in time."

"This might go without saying, but I am really, really glad you're okay," Kitty told her.

"I appreciate it," Jessica said. "And hey, it gives me something to do, like try to figure out why I didn't stay dead. I needed a new hobby."

"Maybe you weren't actually dead? That seems to be the X-Men way, at least," Kitty said.

"Big hole, I think the size of my head, right through here," Jessica said, pointing on her shirt at the area of her chest where she could feel the giant scar. "I was dead. And I think I know the root cause of why I'm not anymore. It's just figuring out all the points between A and, whatever, Q."

"How do you even start figuring that out?" Generally X-Men glossed over that. See also the Rasputins.

"It's..." Jessica tried to think of the best way to phrase it, until giving up and admitting that Facebook got it right. "It's complicated. The chemical that's at the root of my powers has a very small sample size of users. Most died pretty soon after exposure." Or being cloned. Whatever. "But there's one guy, this one... guy, who was beaten to death, shot to death multiple times, and he just would not stay dead, no matter how final it seemed. No matter how many times."

"I think it's that stuff. I think I might be like Norman Osborn."

Kitty blinked at her a couple times and asked again, "No, seriously, are you okay?"

"Physically, as far as I can tell right now," Jessica said before taking a long drink. "I'll get back to you about the rest of it."

"The dying part isn't easy," Kitty said, because hi. "And then all the rest on top of it... Everything I think to say seems pithy."

"As long as you keep the drinks coming for a bit, I can live with pithy," Jessica said. "Actually, I guess I can live with a lot!"

Given enough time, Jessica could probably map out in a pie chart what percent sarcastic, bitter, scared, and relieved that joke was.

"You can get as many drinks as you need," Kitty promised. "Because dear god."

"I'm debating whether or not to tell you the part that's really messing me up," Jessica pondered. "Aside from the trauma and body horror and barely escaping an exploding world."

"Go for it. You're talking to someone who- even if I can't personally relate to all of it- probably has seen someone deal with it," Kitty pointed out.

"It's gonna get kind of dark," Jessica warned.

"I know that at least one afterlife exists. I've been friends with actual gods, even if I'm not religious myself, and I have it on seriously good authority that Valhalla is a thing. But while I was gone, there was nothing," Jessica noted. "And I don't know if that's because I don't believe, if it's because Doom was God in Battleworld and he was too busy keeping the actual world together, if it's that I was going to come back from medical death anyway, or if it's that old identity crisis where maybe it's just because I'm not a real human being. I'm a clone. And maybe it's just that since my Creator was a jackass mad scientist who made me for fun and profit, I don't get something like a soul."

"So, yeah. That's what I'm dealing with tonight."

Kitty listened to that, considering. "First off, you're a real person. You're alive, it doesn't matter how. So, I died back in December," she said. "Just for a few minutes, but it was enough. I didn't see anything, but I figure even if I was on the way to some kind of afterlife, why would I remember it? I don't remember what happened before I was born, right?"

"I know all of that. And it's not like I even believe in any afterlife stuff outside of a Viking heaven that was destroyed in my universe anyway," Jessica said. "But knowing and believing things don't make much of a difference right now."

"I'll be fine once I get myself checked out and have a few days to decompress. But until then, everything is kind of terrible."

"Do you need a hug?" Kitty asked.

She probably did, but with the levels of messed up she was emotionally right now, it would probably be a bad idea for it to come from a Kitty Pryde. "I'm way too sore for that right now," Jessica said. "But I appreciate the offer."

"Well, the offer stands. And anytime you need to talk. Or drink."

..

I am Le bored.

Caritas- Tuesday

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