Ever since Evelyn was 13, she was gifted with a perfect memory. Gifted, and cursed, for every perfect sunrise was doomed to be darkened by a darker night. When she was younger, it was annoying, but not the worst thing she'd ever experienced. She relived bullies teasing her, she relived family arguments, and she relived school plays that droned on for hours. But it wasn't until Jensen was shot that she realized just how awful it was to never forget.

Joining the X-men had been the second time she realized just how painful a perfect memory could be. Fights with monsters were not temporary. Claws tearing through her skin, bones breaking, electricity stunning her body: all of those things came back on different knights, haunting her, forcing her to face them all over again. Even training sessions with other X-men added to the pain. While the Danger Room was meant to be a teaching aid, Evelyn could never forget the split second of pain as Saphirus' crowbar crashed through her skull. She never knew what it could feel like to die. But now, she could never forget.

Even small things haunted her like ghosts in the night. Arguments with Mirror, flickers of rage, moments of jealousy. Every time she thought she could get over something, it came back to haunt her, and made her more desperate for an escape. It seemed foolish, and dumb, to hope she could find an answer to her problem, but one day at work, the answer was delivered to the front counter.

An add in the paper stared up at her, and her heart skipped a beat.

Ever want to forget?
To live in the now?

A professional memory wiper. Evelyn didn't care what it could cost, she tore the add from the paper and jammed it in her jeans. That afternoon, she called this 'Noel' to set up an appointment. Central Park, after her shift at work. She stayed up that night, filling two sketchbooks with nervous pictures, the memories she did like. Secretly, she hoped she could close her eyes and face what was there, ripping out the damaged pages just like she would with a sketchbook. This Noel was a professional right? She could erase the memories of even a mutant, couldn't she?

As Evelyn walked to the bench, she fiddled with her gloves and wondered. She didn't tell Mirror her plans. She wasn't sure it would go over well... In fact, she didn't tell anyone, which seemed a little careless, in hind-sight... If something went wrong, would anyone know? She had her ID and her museum name tag with her, so she'd probably at least get back to work. She'd have a lot of explaining to do one way or the other.

A flash of the crowbar raced through her vision and the determination stayed. One way or the other, she had to try. She wasn't sure she could live like this forever.

All she wanted to do was curl up in her holey sweats and eat her Chinese food in peace. Working the night shift meant her hours were off. FOr her, this was dinner. And now, it was hardly even that.

Scarfing egg rolls, Noel picked through her wardrobe for something professional but kinda sorta non-threatening in order to meet her potential client. Potential because over the phone, Noel could never tell and she always gave people the choice to back out. This one did sound a tad desperate and from their initial phone estimate, this meeting could stand to make Noel a rather hefty sum of money.

Noel briefly debated the morality of selling memory loss while she slipped into a black turtleneck.

It was probably okay since she was selective in who she took on as a client.

Blue scarf, dark jeans, leather jacket and sunglasses. Noel grabbed her phone out of its charging spot, left a note for Lana, took one last bite of what would have been the most hunger-satisfying Pad Thai ever had she the time to eat it, and then headed for the park.

Noel bought a diet coke to keep her company and took up residence on their agreed upon meeting place.

The preordained bench was within spitting distance of a peewee league soccer field. Despite the cold, soccer moms were cheering and jeering. Little twerps were happily scraping their knees in a large gaggle around what, in relation to them, was a humongous soccer ball. The poor goalies sat in their small goals shivering and picking weeds.

Nobody with any heart would murder in front of a mob of toddlers.

The woman up ahead didn't look particularly intimidating. Brown hair, leather jacket, and a diet coke in hand as she sat on the designated bench. Evelyn recognized the face, although it wasn't tied to a particular memory. That meant she was at least local, some passing figure from the streets she might have brushed shoulders with at least once before. The sunglasses left no clues from the woman's eyes as she approached, which kept the echoes a bit more quiet. There were reasons they said the eyes were windows to the soul. Eyes could give away a lot about a person, and even Evelyn's own eyes had a tendency to reveal things from time to time. Right now, they probably revealed exhaustion, and traces of desperation.

"Noel?" She said, approaching the woman. Once she was acknowledged, she held out her hand. "My name is Evelyn, thanks for meeting with me. I hope you can help me..." She started and brushed her hair from her face, watching the kids momentarily as they shivered in the cold. The echoes analyzed the rather botched up play for a second, then returned their attention to the stranger. She took a stiff seat on the bench next to the memory eraser. Memory eraser... Even now it sounded too good to be true.

"So, I don't want to be rude, but I know this could be a long shot. I'm a mutant, and I've never been able to forget. But if you think it might work, or you think you could give it a try... I'm grateful you even came to meet me." Evelyn admitted honestly. Her words came out in a rush and she fidgeted with her gloves. It had been a long day, and the more she thought about memories she'd like to erase, the closer they lurked on the surface of her thoughts.

> "Noel?"

Of course, the client showed up just as the brunette had taken a long draw of Diet Coke. Noel turned her head around and tried not to shoot carbonated goodness from her nose as she reached out her hand. Ah. It burned so good. She swallowed with only most of her dignity still intact.

Noel managed to shake the girl's hand without crushing it too. Score! "Yeah. Evelyn. It's good to meet you face to face. Have a seat if you want." Noel was entirely open with the way that she spoke and her mannerisms that even someone without hyper-analytical powers of deduction would know that she was the WYSIWYG type.

And then came the polite listening. Was Evelyn rude? The memorymancer let out a soft snort of air after Evelyn expressed that sentiment. Everything about Evelyn screamed princess from her artfully matched clothes to the slight insecurity. At least she was able to ascertain what she needed from the girl's speech. She was the one who wanted the wipe.

"I've never had a mutation be a problem before. Don't get me wrong, brains are screwy and genetics even more so." Ah. Was that confidence inspiring to say that? Noel sighed, removed her sunglasses, and turned her body toward Evelyn she she could meet her eyes.

"Look, I am more than willing to give it a try, but it's potentially permanent stuff we're messing with here so there are some..." Noel waffled as she decided on a word, her hand tilting between them in a direct reflection of what was going on inside. "ground rules, let's call 'em. I need to know that you know exactly what you're getting into.

First, I need to hear how much you want me to take out. I also need you to know it's not an exact science. Think ice cream spoon instead of laser or shovel. I can do time increments or a direct... thing. Person, event, so on, you know?" Noel rolled her lips in on each other as she went through her mental checklist to the next point.

"There's some disorientation afterward so you're gonna want to write down some basics. Maybe arrange to have a friend pick you up just in case? Definitely jot down some reminders to yourself, though. Not like everything, everything and you really shouldn't write down anything that will remind you of what you've just forgotten."

And the last point? Noel had to fish out her phone to remind her, but she definitely knew she should have three points. "And lastly, I gotta have payment up front. I don't want you forgetting that." She tried to lighten the comment by making it a joke. Yeah? Not funny? Noel cleared her throat and tucked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear.

"So, what's it gonna be?"

Noel was fairly transparent as far as behaviors went. From choking on her soda to the slight snort of air, there was something easy going about her Evelyn liked. She didn't beat around the bush, didn't gloss over details as she spoke, and the honesty was appreciated. Growing up in a world of masquerades, genuine individuals were somewhat rare and valuable in her eyes.

Evelyn noted each statement as they went, emotions rising and falling as she went. Mutations had never been a problem before: good news, hopefully. Ice cream scoop, not a laser: could be more on the bad news end of things. The sunglasses came off, and Evelyn saw Noel's eyes. Hazel, nothing particularly freaky at this point, which was actually almost rare after all the mutants she'd met. The openness continued through the woman's gaze.

Disorientation... could be problematic. She could send a quick text to Jensen though, he was in town and could give her a ride back to the mansion. The less her friends knew about what she was trying, the better. Jotting things down... that almost brought a chuckle. With all the drawings she had in her room, walls of memories, it felt silly to think about having to write something down.

And, payment. Evelyn nodded, and gave a slight smile. "Do you prefer cash, check or cards?" It was already clear what her choice was on the matter, but the slight joking made her feel better about it.

"No, your rules sound fair... As for the memories, it might be easiest just to pick one specific memory to try. If that one works, maybe we can talk about others, but I'm hoping this was recent enough it wouldn't make too much of a mess of things." The Danger Room session with Saph hadn't been completely bad, but once he let the room 'kill' her, it took a downhill turn. She might loose some of the training in the process, but she would never admit how much the memories themselves were hurting her.

It was just one memory, and there were no guarantees it would work anyway. Being with the X-men was a learning experience anyway: testing and exploring her powers. If she had a perfect memory, wasn't it better to test it could always stay that way? That was the logic as she sat on the cold bench, making the deal with Noel. Even the echoes concerned chattering didn't deter her.

"Cash." It wasn't that she didn't trust banking institutions. It was that banking institutions didn't trust her. Funny thing about being without references or utility bills and all that nonsense.

color=yellowgreen]"Okay. Let's see how it works then. A test drive. I need you to tell me about what you want gone. You don't have to tell me everything, I'll be looking into your memory so I'll get the whole she-bang eventually. I just need enough to know what I'm looking for."[/color]

Noel typed with her thumbs on her phone to make some new notes about what they were attempting and why. She set an alarm on it for... mmm, 10? No, 5 minutes from now. It shouldn't take more than that. Then Noel scrolled through her notes until she found her price scale. Depending on what Evelyn told Noel, she would give the girl an updated price just for the test run.

Once they had the money squared away, Noel poised her thumbs over her keypad, ready to take notes, and looked up at Evelyn. "Ready. Lay it on me. Then I'll walk you through the next part."

Cash was the currency of choice, and Evelyn mentally counted what she had in her wallet. Enough to get through this, thankfully. Her bank would probably feel sad for a few weeks one way or the other though. She finished sending a text to Jensen, and another quick jot down of what was happening in a text to herself, while Noel did the same phone gymnastics. The kid by the nearest goalpost continued to shiver unhappily.

"Well, the memory I have in mind will be pretty easy to spot, hopefully. It was a training session... Pretty much anything from the point the first crowbar goes through my face to the end of the session..." She grimaced slightly saying it out loud. She tried to trace how many times the memory had replayed since then, and wondered if that could cause problems with erasing the core memory. If she got rid of the core, would the roots vanish as well? This was a test run, after all. No way of knowing unless they tried.

Once the price was spoken, money was exchanged, she prepared herself for the next step. The echoes chattered about their surroundings, but her focus was for Noel.

Training? Crowbar? FACE!? Noel winced on Evelyn's behalf. She could see how someone who couldn't forget would maybe want to, academically anyway. Why she would need to remove the memory was beyond Noel. It wasn't like she had to re-live it every day, right?

"Uhm. Okay." No judging here about taking a crowbar to the face. Her face looked just dandy right now so it couldn't have been too recent. "If you could give me your hand, I'll need to give it a kiss." Noel waved her own hand around, clearly a tad embarrassed. "It's pretty much the least awkward way to handle this. Once I get a taste for the memory, then all you will need to do is look into my eyes and we'll get rid of that pesky crowbar."

Right. She nodded once and then offered her hand to Evelyn and waited for the woman to place her hand in Noel's rough palm. Chivalrous as a knight, Noel bent forward and laid a chaste kiss on the back of Evelyn's hand and then let go.

She kept the idea of the crowbar in her head, since that seemed like the most easily identifiable concept to search for and then rolled her lips in on each other so that she could put her lips in contact with her tongue.

Noel clearly zoned out as her mutation flicked through and discarded memories until it found a crowbar. She flinched slightly around the eyes. And flinched again and again and again until she'd shut her eyes entirely and bit her lip. "Holy crap in a bucket." The memorymancer had to reach up and check to make sure her face wasn't bashed in and bleeding. It was clear. Every detail. Every. Freaking. Time.

She should have charged more. "Does it happen like this for everything?" The images continued to flip through, but Noel pushed through them until she could see Evelyn again.

Emotions washed across Noel's face, a mixture of confusion, disbelief, and maybe a trace of sympathy lurking in there somewhere. Ok, so getting smashed in the face with a crowbar wasn't the most usual memory for someone to have. The echoes noted the slight look for damage. Thankfully, the Danger Room didn't really damage her. Now, if only she could say the same for her brain.

While Noel wasn't judging about the crowbar to the face, Evelyn wasn't judging about the need for a kiss. Everyone's powers worked differently enough, she just pegged it as being part of the process. One kiss on the hand later, and the echoes noted the...odd behavior as Noel zoned out and put her hand to her face. Evelyn flinched slightly, piecing together the information in Noel's body language and what she said.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd see all of them... I can pay you more, if you need to, really, I just didn't think you'd see the playbacks of it too. And yeah...it happens like that for everything. I relive my memories when I sleep, so you can kind of understand why it's important to make the worst ones go away..." She found herself staring at Noel for a moment, then looked away, embarrassed. "I'm sorry I just... Do you see it, like, as clear as I do, when you see my memories? No one really gets it...They hear perfect memory and it just sounds like a cool thing to use for detective work or something..." She watched Noel carefully. She was half afraid she'd scare the woman off before the memory could go away.

"You won't pay me more." Noel hadn't realized that she'd pushed to her feet and clenched her fists. Information was still trickling in even as the connection to Evelyn's memories faded. "I'll take the rest out of Saphirus' face." Or knee caps. Yeah. Knee caps. She pat her ribs through her coat, but alas she tried not to make it a habit to carry her gun when it wasn't needed. She was just angry enough to use it too.

> "I'm sorry I just... Do you see it, like, as clear as I do, when you see my memories?

"Yes." She hissed the word, knowing full well that Evelyn still had it worse because each time had been crisp and exact. From the outside it was annoying. On the inside, well, this was exactly why Noel offered her services. For people like Evelyn.

Of course, this was tricky business getting payment from a douche nugget who seemed not to think through things to their consequences and had a flipping invulnerable half of his body. It was, however, a comfort to have all the information that Evelyn provided on the matter, even if a lot of it was extraneous.

She rolled her lips in on each other out of habit and pulled out her phone. She typed out every little thing that would help her get Saphirus to cough up some dough and then sat back down on the bench. Hard.

Breathe in. Count to ten. Breathe out. When Noel opened her eyes again she was more rational and refocused on what she'd actually been paid to do.

"I guess you'll be wanting to keep everything about the training but the... deed." She closed her eyes and tried to review the memory, but without perfect recall she wasn't 100% accurate. "Tell me the point when there would be a logical ending to what you did. I can cut it like a film editing so you'll still have closure like walking out of that room. I'll also have to take every recall and I don't want your brain poking around at blank spots." Her brain sometimes poked at blank spots. It almost always ended in blinding migraines and someone else's memories. "Also, I'll be taking this memory, of us talking here and now, and all the lead up since it all points back and gives clues."

Noel opened her eyes and looked at Evelyn again. "In theory, this'll be a one-shot deal unless you want to leave a note for us to try again."

Evelyn hadn't expected her memories to have such a strong effect on Noel, but the other woman was clearly agitated. The way she was standing, her posture, the way she spoke illuminated her anger like it was a flashing beacon. It didn't mean it made sense to Evelyn though. Noel really didn't know Evelyn. Why would she be so mad about the memory?

>>"I'll take the rest out of Saphirus' face."

Memories of Saphirus' bad attitude and judgement passed through Evelyn's mind and she quickly held up her hands. "Please don't tick him off more... He already thinks I'm selfish and I shouldn't be an x-men. If someone tells him I erased memories of that training session he'll probably think I'm too weak to be an x-men or something." Or the blame could roll back to Mirror. This was something she had to try for her own personal reasons. If she had to deal with the memories, she had to deal with the memories, but forever giving up on sleep because of the playbacks would always prevent her from reaching her true potential. She didn't want to be weak, but if there was something she could do about it, she had to try.

Noel seemed to calm down a bit, but Evelyn wondered if she'd really let it side. There was little she could do about it now though. And if this worked, she honestly wouldn't remember ever telling Noel any of this. That was both a good and a bad possibility. "I guess we could always just end it before the 'to the death' part of things started. At that point it was less me learning, more just... being crappy... If there was a missing point there I'd probably just think I got hit and rebooted a little or something and wouldn't poke around with it too much..." She said thoughtfully. She nodded as Noel gave the rest of the instructions, then fished for her phone again. Leaving a note to herself at this point would probably be best.

Today you met with a memory eraser named Noel to help get rid of a more painful training exercise memory. Test to see if memory-erasing can work with your powers. If don't remember meeting, likely successful. If brain is busted and someone else reading this, probably not. She was tempted to add some note like 'Don't let Noel anywhere near Saphirus...' but she figured anything too wordy could risk re-sparking the memory and taking away their changes of this working. Taking a deep breath, she put her phone away.

"Ok, i think I'm ready then..."

> "Please don't tick him off more..."

That was exactly why guys like Saphirus needed to be punched in the baby maker taught humility. She'd dealt with guys like like this. Granted, she had limited exposure to both Saphirus and those other men she hoisted out of bars and night clubs, but this was one case where she could do something about it and not lose her job. Plus, it was worse somehow. She saw it in his eyes. Directed toward her... well, directed toward Evelyn, but it felt like a personal challenge.

He was strong. He could have found ways to use Evelyn's strengths, but instead he wanted to parade the woman's weaknesses around. Training schmaning, he just established himself higher in the pecking order. Evelyn's behavior toward him just reaffirmed the idea to Noel.

Saphirus displayed bad enough behavior that he should share in the responsibility of the clean up.

Noel was totally rationalizing and she knew it. Whatev. Evelyn was ready for her.

The memorymancer set a short timer on her notes so it would make her phone buzz and get her attention then she turned in her seat away from the frozen peewee game that she hadn't between watching anyway.

"Keep eye contact. It shouldn't take but a moment."

Once their eyes met, the pupils of Noel's eyes began to vibrate back and forth.

Forget.
Forget every false death.
Forget me.

She zeroed in on the specified moment in her mind and felt the command hum through her. Noel never could ask what others felt while she erased memories since it was almost always included in what she choose to take, but for her she got a quick review. Images flicked past. Evelyn waking in the night. Walking. Remembering. Reviewing. And of course the actual event. Their meeting. Their conversation...

Noel blinked. She'd done it again.

Her vision expanded out from black starting from a woman's clear eyes. The memorymancer turned away and sipped from the cup in her hand. Diet coke. Her phone buzzed and she checked for messages.

You just did a job. Walk away. Check your notes. 

Evelyn wasn't sure what forgetting would feel like, but if she remembered the experience, she might not have tried it ever again. For some people she imagined it might have felt like a bath, like someone washing something away, it disappearing in the darkness. But for Evelyn, it was like having someone reach in, and try to tear something from her mind.

Forget

Someone was rummaging through her memories, opening files, yanking papers free. The echoes scrambled to find what was missing, flooded to the memories, tried to sort out what was happening. Memories sparked, pain hit nerves, then the images disappeared. Each instance was cleanly cut, sliced, and removed, while Evelyn's powers protested in her mind.

Forget every false death.

Echoes looked at the gaps, forgot the gaps, scrambled then stilled. Playbacks flicked like scratched disks, skipping, skipping, then slowly remembering how to play.

Forget me.

The echoes stared at the woman, with a somewhat familiar face. She had seen her somewhere in New York, probably another person passing by, but no one familiar enough to note. She didn't think of it long as a dizzying sensation settled over her mind. Playbacks jumped to life unbidden, and she put her head in her hand. Her phone pinged and she glanced down at it with blurry vision. It was from Jensen. She didn't really remember texting him though...

Will be there soon. Meet by the zoo? She glanced across the park. The zoo seemed like a long way away. With the rush of playbacks she couldn't quite remember why she was sitting here, or who the woman with the soda was. She was tempted to ask, then another playback flickered past and the thought was lost in images of the cookie monster in Central Park.