Return To Me

A Misty Memory

Wanda felt her lips trembling as the boys hid from her behind the stairs. She slowly went to them, stretching out her hands like limbs on a tree intending to scrape across their bedroom windows. They cried as if she was that monster coming for them in their dreams. There was only one person who really had to worry about that, and it was herself. That was the only person she ever hurt without guilt.

Wanda tried to smile, her lips fighting the pull of her cheeks, exposing her teeth crookedly, trying to hide the agony at the expression the boys had.

She stepped back and to the center of the living room as the boys ran to their actual mother. The version of her with no poison in her veins,pulsing from her dying heart.

Her lips trembled as she realized she had one more person to grieve and she wasn't sure she could take it. This woman with her children was still soft and kind. Her voice was husky but not crackling with pain. She still showed all her teeth genuinely, her nose like a rabbit.

When had she died and become this? Was it after Pietro? Or Vision? No, it was after losing her boys. She was like this and the others were not, because they all had the boys. Her beautiful twins.

She felt a soft touch on her chin, lifting her face as tears rolled down her hot cheeks. She met Wanda's eyes. She had done this in reflections many times before, and she felt the other woman shudder.

"Know they will be loved." That other Wanda whispered to her. Another pang of pain shot through her, so hot and stinging, but leaving her numb once it was gone.

She was going to destroy the book. It was her redemption, as it had been her downfall. It had corrupted her, though she still knew this was her fault, same as every other incident.

Christine held Stranges hand in the other dimension as he puppeted Dead Strange. She could hear someone coming but didn't know what to do about it.

"Steven. Steven, someone is here. Oh!"
She stood up and grabbed a candelabra to defend herself. A young woman wearing a long, blue, cotton cloak, came up the stairs. She pulled the hood down and pushed the cloak open to reveal a black outfit underneath. It was ripped and it was dirty, but so was her face. She had to flip her black hair away from her face, the Bob wouldn't stay out of her eyes. It had once been a great cut but it was growing out unevenly.

"Who are you?" Christine asked, her voice as steady as she could muster. She had faced so many magic users but something was off here.

"I'm here to help. I... I need to see Wanda." The woman explained.

"That tells me nothing." Christine said, still on guard.

"We don't have much time, may I show you?" Christine lifted the candelabra making the woman take a step back after she had moved forward in an attempt to get closer.

"I'm not going to hurt you. It's just a long story so... I'll show you from back here." She lifted her hand and made eye contact with Christine.

Christine saw the dark, ocean blue, of her eyes and then everything seemed to shift and take on that same hue.

Now they stood in a room that she was unfamiliar with. In front of her was the woman but she wore a very dated military uniform with her hair in an even more dated hairstyle. She had her back to Christine, as she was observing two people that were in rooms ahead of her. The two people were behind glass like a zoo.

To the right was The Scarlet Witch. She was so much younger, paler, and very sickly, but she was holding blocks up with her red tendril magic. In the room to the left was a boy with silver hair that was moving so fast that he couldn't stop himself from running into everything in the room with him, decimating them and even almost hurting himself as he did so. It was Pietro. Christine had met him in her own universe before he passed.