Timelined current
<Shaw> The alarm was always jarring for his sensitive ears, but especially so recently. Rolling over, Sebastian barked out a command to the system to give him five more minutes, then dropped the pillow back over his head.
<Monet> Monet entered the penthouse from the elevator, so glad she had her key back, and set her things down on the foyer table. Looking around at the still dark apartment, she assumed Sebastian had to still be in bed. So that was where she headed. Monet grinned as she slowly pushed the door open, spying him hiding under his pillow.
<Monet> She slipped out of her shoes and flew over to the bed slowly, letting herself drift down to be on the bed beside him, gently biting at his naked shoulder once she got close enough.
<Shaw> Already half asleep again and with the pillow muffling the sounds around him, the sudden slight pressure on the bed barely registered. The teeth, however, did. He jumped, swore, and rolled away from his attacker, glaring up at her through his mussed hair.
<Monet> Monet laughed at his surprised behavior, "It's only me amant. Come back to bed. I'm sorry I startled you."
<Shaw> "Monet..." He relaxed minutely, now fairly secure he wasn't hallucinating, and dropped back onto the bed, running both hands through his hair.
<Monet> Monet ran her hand over his bare chest, "Oui. C'est moi." She leaned up and kissed his shoulder, "Why aren't you up already?"
<Shaw> Though the contact was enjoyable, he froze and caught her hand to still it. "No, Monet. That's enough," he said, looking up at her.
<Monet> Monet frowned at him, "Porquoi? I'm not doing anything wrong, am I?"
<Shaw> "You know why," he said, keeping her hand and watching her. It was still impossible to read her.
<Monet> Monet sighed, "Fine. Have it your way." She pulled her hand away from him and sat up. "Have you set up your appointment yet?"
<Shaw> He stretched carefully, listening to his spine pop, then sat up as well. "No, Mrs. Kent has been indisposed, but as soon as she's available I will." Sliding her a glance, he looked her over. "Have you given any additional thought to your memories?"
<Monet> "Non. But I have thought about yours." She frowned at him, "Why don't you trust me to see if I can find what happened?"
<Shaw> He held up his left hand, reaching over to ensure she saw it. "Do you see anything peculiar here, my queen?"
<Monet> Monet took his hand and looked it over, turning it over to look at his palm even. "Oui, your life line is more jagged than I would have thought."
<Shaw> "I had a ring," he said with a sigh, but let her keep up her inspection. "The line is obvious, as I managed to acquire quite a tan in Hawaii. Apparently on my honeymoon."
<Monet> Monet shrugged, "Lots of people wear rings. Men typically only wear them on their ring fingers. I thought nothing of it." She let his hand go and leaned back on her hands, looking at him. "What do you think Selene will find?"
<Shaw> "I do not wear rings." He closed his hand into a fist, let it drop into his lap. Sebastian looked at her, head tilted, surveying, for a long moment."I hope she finds the truth."
<Monet> "I'm going to ask again, since you did not answer me before: why do you not trust me to try?"
<Shaw> He smirked. "Perhaps it's intuition."
<Monet> She frowned at him, "Now that's not even fair. You should trust me more than anyone. I would never do anything to intentionally harm you. You did save my life after all."
<Shaw> His smile faded. "More than even my wife?"
<Monet> Monet shrugged, "She can't help you with this problem. But I can."
<Shaw> Leaning to catch her eyes and hold them, he weighed her offer. "Literally everyone I've spoken to, every piece of documentation I've located, every scrap of evidence, says I had an entirely different life before I returned from England. Yet you seem to see nothing amiss."
<Shaw> "I would like to believe you are a victim in this as well, yet you don't seem terribly alarmed at the idea someone could have entered your mind, uninvited, and bent you to his or her will." He took her hand. "It's violation, Monet, and the woman I know would not stand for such a violation of self."
<Monet> Monet looked down at the comforter for a moment before looking back up at him, "Sebastian, I've been through quite a bit in my life. There is no greater violation of self than being made to live in your own excrement for weeks." She squeezed his hand a bit, "I have no doubt that this will all be straightened out soon. In fact, I'm certain of it."
<Shaw> Sebastian frowned at her, head tilting. His hand tightened. "What do you know?"
<Monet> "I know that if we both don't continue to 'behave', they will have both of our heads. That's what I know."
<Shaw> Eyes narrowing, he leaned in close. "Behave how?"
<Monet> "By being the King and Queen that upholds the standards of the club. Apparently, you got us both into really deep trouble."
<Shaw> "By getting married?" He scoffed. "Most of the members of the Inner Circle and the Lords Cardinal are married," he said, voice rising. "I'm not their property."
<Monet> "I agree. Believe me, I do." She licked her lips and met his eyes, "Do you trust me, Sebastian?"
<Shaw> He studied her face for a long moment, hoping he was reading her correctly. "You tell me. Dare I trust you?" Blowing out a shaky breath, he looked down to their hands and shifted to lace their fingers together. "I'm going to be a father, Monet," he said, fighting to keep the tremor from his voice as he met her eyes again. "I cannot do anything to endanger Jessica and our child. Not again."
<Monet> Monet smiled at him, "That's wonderful news, Sebastian. And I promise you that no harm will come to Jessica or the baby. I already made sure of that. Granted, I did not know there was a child involved at the time." She put her other hand over their laced ones, "Let me into your mind, Sebastian. I promise I can help."
<Shaw> Licking his lips, he nodded, once, hoping he wasn't making a terrible mistake.
<Monet> She gave him a soft smile, reached up to cup his cheek, then closed her eyes to go into his head, searching for the memories she'd merely stored away very tightly. She pulled out the one of her telling him that this was the better option and that she was barely able to talk them into this. Along with the one of his wedding in Hawaii.
<Shaw> He found himself paralyzed, sprawled into the Lord Imperial's throne in the deepest reaches of the Hellfire Caves in Wycombe. The firelight from the torches flickered and he barely focused on Monet's face as she told him... something... "What?"
<Monet> Monet pulled the memory up further into his mind, almost as if unrolling a scroll and bringing it closer for someone to read. "This was my only option, Sebastian. They believe I made it permanent. I did not.”
<Shaw> "You... you did this to me..." His voice was too distant to be menacing as he was still lost in those dark caves. The memory shifted, and he was standing on a beach, perfectly timed in the hour before sunset. His beautiful, blonde bride held his hands and repeated her vows to him.
<Monet> "I had no choice. I did what I could to make it better for you and have them believe I did what they wanted. I couldn't do to you what was done to Jason. I'm sorry, Sebastian." She brought back the time he first met Jessica. She brought back the nursery with the ducks. But she did it all slowly so as to not overwhelm him.
<Shaw> "I asked you that - I begged you..." He was gasping for breath between words. "That you would not do to me what was done to Jason..."
<Monet> "I didn't, Sebastian. Even though they wanted me to. I didn't." Monet took his other hand in hers as well and just watched his face as she pulled memory after memory free. "It was either this, turn you into a vegetable like Jason, or go after Jessica. They believe your memories of her are gone forever. I could not do that to you."
<Shaw> "But you knew it was a lie-" he cut off, tearing his hands free to cover his face.
<Monet> "Oui," she said softly. "I could not say anything in the club, Sebastian. You, out of all people, should understand that. I had to keep up pretenses."
<Shaw> "I thought I was going mad." In fact, perhaps he still was. There was a jumbled mess of memories now, all contradictory, some painful, some wonderful. "She thought I was gone - lost to her forever. I thought it was just a ploy - a con, for the money - but she loves me."
<Monet> "Oui. I know." Monet reached up and gently touched his hands, trying to pull them down from his face, "But you never were. That was never my intent, nor my goal. Only the Lord Imperial's goal. I refused to be someone's pawn, so I did it my way without them knowing."
<Shaw> His audience with the Lord Imperial was coming back to him, and he let her take his hands. Eyes still tightly closed, he struggled to make sense of things. "This makes no sense."
<Monet> "Which parts, amant? Maybe I'm pulling them out too quickly? Or is it just because they're not all back yet?"
<Shaw> Amant. The word made him look up at her sharply. "This was your game... asking me to forgo the company of others at the club..."
<Monet> "My game? Non. It was very tiring trying to keep you as faithful as possible without you becoming suspicious or finding someone who could be riddled with STDs. I did not enjoy myself, believe me."
<Shaw> "I very distinctly remember what we did, Monet." It was surprising how much the idea he was unfaithful bothered him.
<Monet> "Oui. As do I. Would you like for me to take those memories away for you? Permanently this time?"
<Shaw> "No, I believe you've done quite enough." He didn't want her mucking about any more than necessary in there, and things were still a muddled mess in his head. Shaking it, he winced.
<Monet> "It was just an offer." She pulled her hands back and set them in her lap. "Sebastian. In order to keep Jessica and your new baby safe, we have to keep up this charade until we can figure out how to handle it from the inside."
<Shaw> "I know how to handle it. The Lord Imperial is a dead man."
<Monet> "Oui, but you can't just kill him. It has to be done carefully." While she was still pulling memories out for him, she erased the memory she had planted of them having sex, replacing it with the truth of the matter. "If you go straight for him, people will know why and will go after Jessica. All I did, I did to avoid that. Do not make this torture be in vain, Sebastian."
<Shaw> The troublesome memory he was spending more time than he should dwelling on vanished and he gave her a suspicious look. Now if only the one of Hope would do the same. "It's imbecilic that he would have done this and thought it would hold, unless this was all meant to be an overly elaborate warning." He frowned, staring at the rumpled sheets.
<Monet> She gave him an innocent look back and shrugged. Monet arched an eyebrow, "He's getting a bit senile in his old age, darling. I was able to talk him into this solution rather easily. He thought I would permanently be erasing things instead of storing them tightly away where you wouldn't be able to find them."
<Shaw> Sebastian growled. "It has the feel of a trap."
<Monet> "How is that? Because he didn't want you married to someone who wouldn't make you miserable?"
<Shaw> "I don't know," he muttered, scrubbing a hand through his hair and over his unshaven face and realizing while he may not have slept with Monet, he was certainly very naked with her right now. "Yet."
<Monet> "Exactly. We have to be smart about this, Sebastian. We have to keep up pretenses until we have everything figured out. I would suggest bringing Jessica into it to avoid hurting her any further, however, I'm not sure she would be able to act rationally."
<Shaw> "She already knows I remember pieces, and I asked her to come with me to see Kent." He looked up at Monet. "I must tell her, but it's very possible we're being watched. Now. Certainly last night..."
<Monet> Monet let her eyes close and her head fall, disappointed with herself for not thinking that through. "Merde. We should probably call an exterminator, oui?"
<Shaw> "Oh yes." He sighed, scanning the corners of the room and suddenly recalling Sarkissian's bugging effort of the previous year. Perhaps he would need to make use of this unwanted connection to the woman after all.
<Monet> Monet leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, "It will all be well, amant. Would you like some coffee?"
<Shaw> This was still entirely surreal, and he simply nodded at her. "S'il vous plaît," though those words harkened back to begging her for his life and he pulled away.
<Monet> Monet looked at him sadly as he backed away then moved to get up, leaving him to get dressed while she went to the kitchen. The coffee pot had already turned on and brewed a pot before she had come up the elevator, so she simply poured him a cup, went to the foyer for her purse, and came back to his room. "I have something for you, by the way."
<Shaw> At least he had been quick to find pajama pants, though he wasn't certain he remembered owning them. As preoccupied as his thoughts were right now, he hadn't paid attention to her movements in his apartment. When she reappeared behind him, however, he was acutely aware, and spun, startled.
<Monet> Monet gasped as she jumped, sloshing the coffee over the edge of the mug and onto her purse and the floor, which also meant her shoes. "Really, Sebastian? This is not keeping it up," she said through clenched teeth.
<Shaw> "My apologies..." He shook his head. "Are you quite certain you didn't do any permanent damage?"
<Monet> "Non. I made certain. If you doubt me, you may still go to Selene." She handed him the coffee and went to his bathroom to dry off her purse and shoes. "Or any other telepath of your choosing."
<Shaw> Sebastian accepted her response and the coffee with a faint smile. "Perhaps it will just take time."
<Monet> She came back out and set her purse on the bed so she could find what she was looking for at the bottom. "Ah ha." Monet glanced up at the ceiling with her eyes to remind him they might be being watched. "I have a surprise for you, amant. Close your eyes and hold out your hand."
<Shaw> He watched her curiously, and when she turned back to him he didn't miss her warning. Her request, however, seemed ridiculous. "Are we in grammar school, Monet?" Eyebrow raised, he surveyed her, then relented and did as she asked.
<Monet> She pulled a small box out of her purse and set it in his hand. "A token of good faith." Monet closed his hand around it and prayed no one was watching.
<Shaw> Opening his eyes, he met hers. It was tiny, and with this realization another memory floated to the surface of his mind and he suspected he knew what was in it.
<Monet> "Keep it safe. And well hidden. Now that you are aware, I can give it back. Oui?" She gave him a small smile and let go of his hand.
<Shaw> Nodding slightly, he searched for a pocket he didn't have in the pants, then set it on the bureau. Taking a sip of his coffee, he struggled with his thoughts, keeping his back to Monet as he tried to buy himself time.
<Monet> "There are still things locked away from you. But only because if I give it all back at once, you will be in excruciating pain. Allow me to stay by your side for the remainder of the day and you should have everything restored by nightfall." She went up behind him and slid her arms around his waist. "I did this to protect what you love, Sebastian."
<Shaw> Sebastian's spine straightened and he fought his conflicting urges. "Is that wise, if we haven't yet checked the apartment for spying eyes?"
<Monet> "Staying by your side? Oui. They wouldn't expect any less. If they have been watching, they will know that I am playing the very jealous, possessive Queen to your King." She rose onto her tip toes to give his shoulder a kiss, "We will handle it. Je vous le promets."
<Shaw> "And if they are listening? Then it's too late, yes?" The kiss made him hiss.
<Monet> "If they have been listening, it was too late once we knew that Jessica and her pet snake were going to pay us both that visit at the club." She pulled back enough to put a hand on his arm to try and get him to face her, "We are not dead yet. Nor is anyone barging in to try."
<Shaw> "I invited them, both of them, because I knew something was wrong and Sarkissian was willing to help me, much as I loathed the idea."
<Monet> "Oui. And if you knew something was wrong, so did they, and they likely did listen in to that conversation if they had been doing more than just watching."
<Shaw> "Perhaps then, if you had told me what was going on, this could have been avoided." He turned around to glare at her.
<Monet> Monet closed her eyes and took a breath, beginning to get frustrated with him. "If I had told you too soon, they would have noticed."
<Shaw> "Instead you let me believe I was losing my mind," he said, a growl in his tone. "Setting aside the fact that you took it to begin with." Frustrated, he put the coffee down and began to pace. "And yes, I realize you risked yourself in disobeying the Lord Imperial."
<Monet> "I let you believe it until it was impossible to hide anymore. I had hoped that you would send Jessica away and file a restraining order or something. They ordered me to take away everything that made you how you are now, and not how you used to be. Throwing Jessica out would be something that the old Sebastian would do." She crossed her arms, "So, yes I let you believe that."
<Shaw> "I tried." He rubbed his face with both hands. "I tried to send her away. I said horrible things to her."
<Monet> "And yet," she sighed and let her arms fall, "true love prevails. Oui?"
<Shaw> His own arms dropped to his sides. "Evidently." He let out a harsh laugh. “Thankfully.”
<Monet> She reached out and took both of his hands in hers as she looked up at him, "We will rule. With our own laws. Not theirs."
<Shaw> "We need to know who is loyal to the Lord Imperial and who would agree with us. I know some of that number, as they were conspicuously absent from that kangaroo court in Wycombe." He was curious about her constant and irritating efforts to touch him and so he twisted his wrists to catch hers.
<Shaw> Pulling her close, he bent close, his nose inches from hers. "What game are you playing now, amant?"
<Monet> Monet smirked at him, "No game. I just like it when you pay attention to me." She closed the distance to give him a kiss on the cheek, then immediately pulled out of his personal space. "I should let you get dressed for the day. We have much to do."
<Shaw> "Are you withholding additional memories because you wish I would pay attention to you all day?" He crossed his arms, head cocked.
<Monet> Monet shrugged, "Would you rather have them all now? Which not only would put you in horrible pain, but also, alert them if they are watching because you will be doubled over in said pain?"
<Shaw> He closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't know how to do this." The admission cost him a great deal and he turned away, stalking back to the dresser to stare at his cooling coffee.
<Monet> "Do what, Sebastian? Be King? Be married? Or merge the two?"
<Shaw> "I cannot endanger her, or her child. My child." He touched the box.
<Monet> "And you will not. We need to keep her as in the dark as possible about all of this until we are in control."
<Shaw> Fingers brushing over the box, he turned back to her. "I must tell her, but if it's a role we have to play for a time, then so be it."
<Monet> "Do you trust her to not slip up?" Her arms crossed once more and she arched an eyebrow at him.
<Shaw> "You saw my memories, you severed my link with her, you know she is... devoted to me."
<Monet> "Oui. But she can still make mistakes. Anyone can. Do you trust her to not?"
<Shaw> "I do if I send her away," he sighed, rubbing at his eyes again, when the reality of losing her overwhelmed him. His stomach rebelled and he staggered the few steps to the bed again, sitting down heavily. "But she cannot go back to Sarkissian. Not after what she did, what I did to get her back..."
<Monet> "What if they follow her to make sure?" She went to sit beside him, placing a hand on his knee. "Viper may be her best chance of surviving this. She will be a good bodyguard, Sebastian."
<Shaw> "We're creating very strange bedfellows with this... what is this? We can't just go on pretending and we can't simply put a bullet in the man's brainpan with no compunctions." He was dizzy, and his thoughts hard to focus.
<Monet> Monet frowned in thought as she stared at her hand on his knee. "Non. But we can continue the charade until we know what we are going to do at least. We have to figure out who will help us in this coup."
<Shaw> "The Starks, of course, Tanaka, a few of the other mutants I've introduced to the Club." His skull was beginning to pound, brutally, as if that Pym child had taken up residence in his head with a small sledge hammer.
<Monet> "Sebastian, you don't look well. I believe all of this information at once is causing you to have some sort of overload. We can take a day or so to let you rest, if you need it."
<Shaw> As much as he wanted to scoff, to push her away, he became hot and was thankful for his lack of clothes. Just as suddenly, and with several flashes of unpleasant memories, he was cold, shivering. He looked up at Monet for assistance and was barely able to whisper her name.
<Monet> Monet was alarmed at the sudden change in his composure. He looked ill a moment ago, but now he looked near death. She stood up and scooped him up like a small child, walking him to the side of the bed so she could lay him down. She felt of his forehead and her frown deepened. "Do not move." She covered him up and went to the bathroom for the thermometer and a cool rag.
<Shaw> He could not move even if he'd wished. The shivering became more intense, his teeth chattering. His last memory was one he could not date, when he found himself alone in a church. A tiny coffin rested on the altar and a priest gave him platitudes he did not believe. What he did believe was he wasn't meant to be happy. "Ah, oui... le bonheur est la faiblesse..."
<Monet> "Oui. That's what they want us to believe." She came back in and sighed as she found him already asleep. Monet set the thermometer on the bedside table, the rag on his forehead, and pulled the covers up to his chin.
<Monet> Then, she moved to his dresser to find a suitable oversized shirt and pair of boxers for herself, not wanting to wrinkle her dress, and climbed on top of the covers beside him, putting her arm around him and holding him close to keep him warm. This was going to be a long and insane journey they were about to embark on. What a way to begin.