" Oh, my love." Betsy pressed her hand to your glass cage. She came here every day and every day, and her heart shatters a little more. " You shouldn't be here." Betsy was in the deepest depths of the mansion in a bunker meant to survive a nuclear war. In the center of it was you, caged and chained down. Betsy's eyes lingered on you as she began to pace the room. " The others believe you're gone. Ororo thinks I'm hoping against hope for you to return. Some days I feel that way."

Betsy swallowed the lump in her throat. Everything about this was awful; That you were locked up like an animal, that the modifications Apocalypse gave you when he turned you into his Horseman covered your body permanently, that Betsy sometimes telepathically synched with your body to use you as little more than an attack drone to save her life and the life of the X-Men. But perhaps worst of all was that when she synched with your body, there truly was nothing in your mind, it had shut down under the strain. And your eyes were so lifeless. In every sense of the word, you were gone. Every telepath on the X-Men had double-checked, and they couldn't make contact with you either. Hank and every man and woman of science Betsy knew had checked. And yet Betsy kept hoping. Every time she came to see you, every time she synched with you, Betsy prayed for the slightest twitch of your hand, the faintest glimmer of recognition to cross your eyes. Betsy was living her very own hell on Earth seeing you like this. " I'm sorry," Betsy said after a moment as she wiped her eyes gently.

" When Apocalypse did this to you, and you came home to me the first time, I promised that from here on out, I would be there for you," Betsy murmured, touching her forehead to the glass. " I promised every time the urges to destroy he left in you surfaced, I would subdue them. I promised I would never let you become the weapon he tried to twist your soul into. And now look at you. Look at us." Betsy's voice broke. " I can't bring you home."