through me || viv vision

008

"~Trippin' through the time-stream, savin' worlds as we go...

"~...we gotta fix what's broken 'fore we're allowed to go home!

"~We're EXILES-- always onna outside!

"~EXILES-- always ALONE!~"

Teddy, TJ, Erik, and Wanda sit around the kitchen table playing the one random board game they scavenged from the depths of a closet in the apartment.

It is a scene, certainly. Between TJ's snippets of broken German taught to her by her father and Teddy's open laptop's supplementary Google translations of that and Wanda's Romanian, no one is quite using the same rules, but they are laughing and they are managing. Even Erik lightens as they play, smiling at the familial chaos.

TJ reaches to move her playing piece just as Wanda stretches for a card. As their fingers brush, TJ gasps, her mind flooding with images of her own Wanda, her mother.

"TJ?" Teddy questions.

Her eyes are wide, watching the images in front of her. Her as a teen in the X-Men headquarters, the Scarlet Witch visiting and speaking cordially with her and her father. She and her father are obviously a couple still, but TJ has no memory of her mother in such recent years.

"My... My dad raised me alone..." she mutters. "I never met my mother."

Wanda and Erik stare with somewhat frightened eyes.

"Did I do something wrong?" Wanda mutters in Romanian, gone unheard.

TJ sees herself as a baby, as a small child in a home together with her parents, as a teen visiting Wanda at the Avengers headquarters or having her spend days with the X-Men on the other side of the country. Split up to their separate teams, but certainly in each other's lives.

TJ gets a hold of herself. "I told you all I'd never met my mother."

"Yeah..." Teddy reaches for the three-pronged hand tenderly.

"When I brushed Wanda's hand just now I saw memories that... didn't seem like mine? That were covered. Memories of my mother. I did know her. And I... I think I was with her when I was taken here."

"Well, that must mean something for the whole spell debacle, right?" Teddy questions. "She's a powerful witch, more powerful than Billy probably. Do you think she got involved in the spell somehow?"

TJ is still distracted, panting, "I can't believe I forgot her..."

"There must be a reason for it."

"Or not... Chaos magic. I just can't believe I forgot her so easily. We were actually, we're a happy family and all that. I was raised by my father at Xavier's, yes, but they're still married, they still love each other, I saw my mother all the time. Teleportation and all.

"And..." TJ reaches into the memories, stretching her mind. "Fuck, I've lost it. There's something else, something about the spell. Wanda... Teddy, give me the laptop."

"Sure..." Teddy complies somewhat questioningly.

TJ types feverishly.

Wanda, I need to enter your mind using my powers. It will only be for a second and you won't feel a thing. You'll just be a little disoriented after. There's something in your mind that will help us get home.

Wanda reads carefully. The grammar is jumbled, but the message is there. She nods slowly, with brave resolve. 

"What's happening?" Erik questions.