ax_main | Billy and Laura

Billy meets Laura at the party, and the two finally talk.

The song was winding down, but Billy stayed with it, dancing without a partner until the last beats. He wasn't very good at faster dancing yet, but it felt good to move after the drinks. The worst that happened if he missteped was that someone might smile or laugh, and that was OK.

He stepped out of the dance area, smiling to himself still, and made a beeline for the snack table. Goodnight was probably still sharing drinks with Terry; it might be a good idea to bring them something.

Alcohol did not taste good.

Laura decided this as she gingerly set the cup filled with what she had read as Jameson on the table in front of her and turned her nose up at it. She watched as one of the newer kids, one of the facility’s children, came out of the crowd towards her and the table filled with food. He was smiling, which was not unusual, all the other children from the labs seemed to have no real problem showing emotion like she did. When he got close enough she gave a very small wave and nodded to him. “Hello. You are the one they call Billy, yes?”

Billy looked up from the plates he was filling. "One of them. Billy Rocks, not Teddy's... um, not Billy Kaplin. And you're Laura. I wanted to talk to you."

Laura raised an eyebrow at already being known, but gave a small nod. “Anything in particular?”

Billy nodded. "Is it OK if I ask you about the facility they had you at? Teddy said you were like me? That you didn't have a time before that?"

She frowned deeply there and she gave the boy a more thorough look over. Was he another one? Had they tried cloning more than Weapon X? “I am fine with questions about the facility. When you say time before that...were you born in the lab?”

Billy shook his head. "I don't know. My first memories are of waking up at my former school, and I definitely wasn't a baby then. I thought you could help me figure it out somehow? But it sounds like we didn't have the same experience."

“Your earliest memories are of a school...” Laura frowned a little as she thought about that. Her earliest memory was watching one of the lab technicians take her blood sample, but she had to have been four or five at the time. Still technically a child. “How old were you at this first memory? What kind of school were you in?”

"Like... here, a little?" Billy considered. "It was a place to train and learn. But it didn't feel the same. Like... boot camp? Like military training. I don't know how old I was then, but I was older. A teenager, at least."

“Here?” She even glanced around the place, but when he explained more the school did not sound like Xavier’s at all. She licked her lips for a minute and hoped her next question did not offend the boy. “Is Billy Rocks your given name?”

Billy shook his head. "I had a number designation back at the old school, and nothing after they gave me to the Right laboratory. I chose my name, with some help from Goodnight."

It was weird, feeling a connection to a stranger by the fact that they both were actually nameless, though Billy probably had a name at some point, but he could not remember. She nodded, her frown softening into a flat line. “I was X twenty-three for all of my life, until my mother gave me a name in a letter about a year back.”

She shrugged her shoulders a little. “I like Laura Kinney and Billy Rocks better than a string of numbers. Glad I am meeting Billy Rocks as well.”

"It's better being a person," Billy agreed. He was a little disappointed, in some ways. Despite what Teddy had implied, it didn't seem there was any way he and Laura had come from the same place. But at least there was someone here who understood without ever having been a target of his. "And it's good to meet you too. Have you been here long?"

She nodded at Billy’s statement, it being very true and then gave a small shrug as she took a few grapes and popped them into her mouth.

“Since the end of September.” She replied after swallowing. “It was different from what I was used to. Took time to adjust. Actually, I am still adjusting.”

"Us too. Me more than Goody, I think." Billy shrugged. "I wouldn't go back, though. It would be worse now, having been outside." He rubbed unconsciously at the scars on his arms. "Teddy said you blew up the place that kept you prisoner."

“Tommy Shepherd did. Alex Summers and him blew it up.” She corrected, reaching out to touch the corner of the table. “I destroyed the people inside first though.”

Billy frowned a little. X-Force hadn't been the ones to help her. "How did you get away the first time?"

Laura stared down at the table intently, wondering if it would be best to keep quiet on this matter. She was pretty sure only the ones who had gone with her on the mission knew what she had done or if others knew they did not seem phased. But...Billy was another one like her, he had been trained and conditioned to kill almost as long as she had from what his story sounded like so why would he react poorly? “My mother decided she had enough with them controlling me and told me it was time to escape after one last mission.”

She looked up at him expressionless. “I got rid of everyone who tried to stop me.”

Billy cocked his head, as if puzzled by the implied challenge in the statement. "You had to. They wouldn't have just let you leave. Your mother, did she come with you?"

Laura had to keep remembering that this boy was not like the other students and his easy acceptance of what she did made her blink for a moment before she shook her head slightly. “No, she unfortunately did not make it out with me.”

Which was why it was good that Billy had Goodnight. He had someone to be with when things were confusing and hard, that thought made a ghost of a smile come to her face. “I am glad you have someone right now. It hard being free at first. Goodnight seems like a good person.”

"He's wonderful," Billy said. Simple, matter of fact. "I wouldn't be here without him." He'd still be that blank... thing. Even if X-Force had found him. "Your mother... I'm surprised you were allowed to know her. Even letting me know Goody was just a way for the keepers to hurt him."

Laura pressed her lips together tightly, she scratched at her arm for a moment before answering. “She was one of them...the doctors. They had hired her to make the original clone, but they forced her to be my surrogate when she made me female against their wishes. She told me when the others were not looking.”

Billy was silent for a moment, trying to identify just why that quiet statement made him so angry, and falling short. Maybe he'd ask Goody about it later.

"It was good that you killed them," he murmured. "Not just needed."

It was weird, hearing that her actions were accepted instead of looked upon like something out of a horrible crime summary. She shifted her weight to her other foot, the strange feeling of wanting to reach out to the other without knowing why was making her feel uneasy. “I am glad you see it that way, many probably would not. I do not think killing those who hurt you or loved ones is bad.“

Talking about killing and murdering others was not polite party talk she was almost sure, but they were both messed up creatures with a similar past, when else would she get this opportunity? “How did you get from the school to the lab? Were you kidnapped like the others or sold?”

"Probably given away or sold. They had me in a lab or hospital for something before, maybe for tests. Then I woke up in a new lab one day." Billy shrugged. "I don't think I was much use to them. That's why they used me to train other mutants."

Laura nodded, pretty sure that was not supposed to sound normal but it did to her. “When did you manifest? Was the school you were at for mutants or for regular children?”

"I don't know when I got my powers. Not too long before I woke up at the first school, I guess. I didn't know very much about using them. But it was definitely a school for training mutants. It was just you in your facility? Or were there others?"

Another school for mutants. Interesting. Except Billy’s first school seemed a lot less of the helpful and nurturing than this one. “It was only me, at least that I am aware of. They had planned to...make more of me, but I destroyed any of embryos when I left.”

Were they really her though? They would have had her face and DNA, but they would have been their own person. No, it was better she had destroyed them. Yes, it was better.

"Good." Billy looked down at the plates in his hands. "You've given me a lot to think about, but I should get back to Goodnight. Can we talk again later?"

“Yes.” Laura replied and nodded her head when she caught sight of Billy’s other. “I am around most of the time.”

Billy nodded. He couldn't wave, but offered a quick smile, then darted off into the crowd.