Everything That Never Was - Marvel's Runaways

i. not what it seems

A pulsing light flashed in front of a younger Julianne Scott, revealing the silhouette of a man she had never seen before. And she knew this situation by heart. However, just as quickly as the man was there he was gone, thrusting her back into the circumstances she was all too familiar with.

Her small, eight year old hands struggled to cover the stab wound in her mother's chest, to will all of the blood back in, but no matter how hard she tried it just wasn't working.

She found herself focusing so much on her task at hand that she didn't notice the front door opening until the person spoke.

"Oh, no, JJ. What have you done?" The horror in her father's voice still haunted Jules to this day.

For the first time ever she was able to get a response out: "It was the man."

Joseph Scott, however, just continued on like the situation was scripted. He came up behind his daughter, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Go to the kitchen, Julianne," he told her like her previous statement didn't even exist. "Call 911 and request an ambulance. When they ask what happened just tell them that your mother has been stabbed, nothing else."

Jules shook her head at her father, tears welling up in her eyes. "It wasn't me!" She sobbed her line.

This time, as scripted, her father heard her, "I know JJ, I just need you to do this for me. Okay?"

Jules nodded and ran into the kitchen. Her blood covered hands were shaking as she lifted the landline to her ear.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

"My mom was stabbed," Jules cried into the phone.

She heard her woman on the other side of the line shuffle something around. "Okay, sweetheart," the woman said in a reassuring voice, "where's your mother now?"

Jules spewed out her home address, the first thing that came to her mind.

"That's good, sweetheart. Okay, is anyone with her now?"

Jules wiped away her tears with her arm, trying to avoid getting blood on her face. "My daddy's in there. The man with the bright light killed her," she said through heavy breaths. Everything was happening so fast, it felt like she was running a marathon.

"Good, good," the woman continued like she hadn't even heard the latter part of what Jules had said. Just like her father. "Can you bring me to him?"

Jules nodded even though she knew the woman couldn't see. "Is-Is my mom going to be okay?" She barely choked out behind a sob.

The woman on the other end of the line took a deep breath, "You've been so strong so far, Sweetheart. I need you to keep that up and listen to what I have to say. Don't give up on me now."

Again Jules nodded before bringing the phone to her father. She watched as he listened, following the directions the woman gave him.

"I-I didn't do this," Jules stammered, but her father didn't even seemed phased. "The man with the light. The man with the light!"

Suddenly, for the first time in the whole night, her father's head snapped in her direction after the comment.

"You need to wake up, Jules," he said in a voice that felt too harsh to be her father's. Her father also never had called her by her nickname. "It's okay."

"You're okay.  You're okay.  It's just a dream."

Jules gasped awake to a firm hand intertwined with her own.

"You're safe," the voice said again.

As it dawned on her who was sitting in her bed with her, she snapped her hand away.  "Get out of my bed, Alex." 

"You were having those nightmares again.  You kept tossing and turning and saying something about a man and a light." The boy was watching his technically adoptive sister with worried eyes that were hidden behind his glasses.

Jules raised one questioning eyebrow toward him to try and pass off impassiveness.  She couldn't exactly admit that "those nightmares," as he called them, had happened every night since she had showed up at the Wilder house all those years ago; that they still happened when he had spent years sleeping in her bed with her trying to get her to calm down by saying that he was there, that he would protect her no matter how frail he himself was; that they still happened even as the two got older and she had told him that they had stopped; that she had just gotten better at hiding their existence; that she still yearned, even after she sent him away, to wake up from them to see his face. Because she couldn't let him get that close again. Because every time someone cared about her they got hurt, and she vowed to never let it happen again.

"It was nothing, Alex," She grumbled. "Just one bad dream."

The boy looked at his best friend skeptically, like he didn't believe a word that has just come out of her mouth. She desperately hoped though that he did. "Mom and Dad have breakfast downstairs when your ready. We leave for school in twenty." He turned to leave but just before he did, he cast a look over his shoulder. "They're in a weird pro-moving-on mood today. Trust me I've already gotten that speech, so I'll keep this between you and me for now."

Jules forced a smile towards the awkward teenage boy hoping it would be enough to soothe his worry. "I promise, Al, I'm fine. Now go play some video games so I can get changed," She cracked, throwing a pillow in his direction. She watched watched his back as he hesitantly left her room.

When the door shut behind him, Jules wanted to break down and cry.  But she didn't, she couldn't, because in the first time in a long time her dreams, her memories, gave her some sort of answers.  Answers that cleared some of the guilt that had plagued her for the past nine years.  Answers that told her that she didn't kill her mother, and neither did her father, but in fact a man with a bright light did.  And while that wasn't a lot to go on, it was something.  And she could work with something.