Another Line in the Ledger

[Sayne]

Blake's mother was an upper-class woman from Manhattan, and his father was a smuggler breaching embargos and blockades. Two people from vastly different worlds had somehow come together and had not one, but three children in the span of a few years. Blake didn't care about the story--or god forbid the logistics involved. He'd always found the entire ordeal a mystery, one that neither party would answer, even among the living. His father took the secret to the grave, and he suspected his mother would as well.

He'd never met her until his father's passing. She offered the Hollow Crown resources--resources she claimed to have used to help his father a handful of times. Blake had always turned them down--why would he need anything from a woman who never had the decency to meet her child until his father was dead?

"Hello, Blake." she greeted after setting her drink down softly on the table. Even the smallest movements were full of class.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

The woman sighed, resting her elbow on the table and leaning her head into her fist as she examined Blake’s stoic expression.

"Why must everything be a transaction with you? Can't a mother come to celebrate her son getting out of prison?" she said, glancing toward the increasingly loud group of Rogues in the corner.

"No." Blake replied flatly. "Thomas doesn't even know who you are. I'd like to keep it that way. We both know what happened with Sasha."

The woman's mask faltered for a moment, but she gracefully recovered, reaching for her glass and taking a slow sip before setting it back on the table.

"That was your father's doing."

"How convenient to place the blame on a dead man. I find it interesting it all went down soon after you met her for the first time."

"I simply gave her what she wanted."

Blake slammed his hand down on the table hard enough to draw attention. It was the first time he'd lost his composure in a long while. This woman always had that effect on him. Slowly, the noise returned to the room; those who overheard his outburst knew better than to comment, lest they draw the ire of their frustrated boss.

Sasha had been on his mind a lot lately. With Tommy recently out of Sugarland, it pained him that the three children who’d grown up in the halls of various Rogue installations were still fractured. But Sasha had made her peace with what she’d done, and there was no coming back from that now. The woman seated across from him had made certain of that.

"Get to the reason you're here." he said, his words cold as ice.

"I thought it prudent to bring you this." she said, sliding a key across the table. She withdrew her hand, leaving the key where it lay. Blake regarded it with cold eyes.

"Is that supposed to mean something?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. He heard her mutter something about his father before returning her gaze to him.

"Hargrave was many things, but a fool was not one of them. He suspected he’d die at the hands of those mutants from the Omicrons one day, so he took out a little insurance policy. He left it to me in his will--it only just reached me due to the amount of red tape involved."

A will? Since when had the old man had the foresight to do that?

"Your father was a part of many things you had no idea about," she said, almost reading his thoughts. "He raised you to be his successor should that day ever come--and he chose wisely. You might not believe this, but he was determined to raise you on his own, without external help--from me included."

"Why not take this insurance policy for yourself and sell it to the highest bidder? You're selfish enough to do so."

The woman slid to the edge of the booth and stood. She turned to Blake, the briefest hint of sadness in her eyes.

"Do you really think so little of me? I may not have been there for you in your youth--at your father’s request--but I still gave birth to you. Hargrave wanted me to give this to you. It was the only way for it to get to you without the prying eyes of the Outcasts."

She turned to glance at the group of Rogues, now growing ever louder.

"I'm glad he's out and back with you now. I wish things had been different with Sasha. I do...but..."

"...it was her choice. She has to live with it."

She turned back to her son with hard eyes.

"We all do, Blake. We all do."

With that, she turned and departed, gently placing her hand on one of the guards in thanks as she passed. Blake watched her leave, his attention shifting back to the bronze key sitting on the table. A game his mother was playing, or truly a gift left by his father from beyond the grave? Whatever the case, he'd follow this clue to its conclusion. If there was some kind of insurance policy that could free them from the Outcasts’ influence over their family, he would seize that opportunity. Something in the back of his mind screamed that the key would open more than just a lock.

With that in mind, he rose from the booth, straightened his jacket, and pocketed the key. If he knew his father, he'd hidden it somewhere only Blake would know to look--he just had to find it.

---

I've lost people who meant the world to me...and I'm still doing just fine.

I'm coming for everything they said I couldn't have.