Let the Rayne Fall (solo/songfic)

(OOC: Lyrics are from 'Come Clean' by Hillary Duff.)

Let's go back
Back to the beginning
Back to when the earth, the sun, the stars all aligned

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New York City, known as ‘The City That Never Sleeps’. People could be found everywhere, at any time of the day or night. Some crowds were less savory than others, but were crowds nonetheless. Weather is no barrier either. Rain, thunder, snow, wind, stifling heat.... none of it mattered to the inhabitants of the Sleepless City. Even in Central Park at night, people could be found straggling between the trees; couples out for a romantic midnight stroll, homeless figures huddled together for warmth, the random gang out to do property damage, or the shadow-clothed villain out to cause physical harm or even death.

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And then, every once in a while, came the solitary figure out for no other reason then to be alone with their thoughts.

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Once such lonely figure, a woman, stood at the edge of one of the ponds.

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This particular night belonged to the rain, and it decided that the city needed a decent cleansing. With the air being too warm to allow it to form hail or snow, it pelted the earth in an steady downpour instead. But the solitary figure didn’t seem to notice the torrent. She stood at the water’s edge, and let a steady stream travel down her rain-darkened hair and soaked clothing, falling in its own downpour to the ground around her feet.

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Dull violet eyes stared out from underneath drooped eyelid, watching each, single raindrop, clear as crystal, splatter into tiny, wet shards in her outstretched hand, then merge once more into the mass of rainfall, washing away minute impurities of the flesh.

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If only rinsing away the cares of life could be so simple. Just to stand out in the rain, and let it all wash away.... And yet, that’s what it felt like to Iris. The past year of life had dealt her so many blows, so much pain. Her perfect world had been turned inside out, upside down and shaken to pieces. The most recent, and hardest, blow came from a person she’d been friends with since childhood, a person she thought she could tell anything. A person she’d discovered had been leading a secret life, just as Iris had been, but darker.

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Finding out that her close friend, and co-worker on the Ranch, belonged to the Church of Humanity during Registration had been difficult to deal with. It had taken courage Iris didn’t think she possessed to confront her friend, even more to do so in person. But she’d found the resources somewhere.

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It wasn’t even her friend’s rejection that hurt the most; Iris had really been expecting that. And it wasn’t the words. There were no words to cause pain.

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It was the look. Disgust. Loathing. As if she’d touched something vulgar. Or had been wallowing in filthy and vile. It was a look of betrayal, and bitterness. Not just simple animosity. Hatred. Rancor. Death.

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It shattered Iris’s world like a glass bubble.

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Sometimes blessings could be found in the strangest of places.

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Her mind and heart still felt numb from the pain. No doubt it would hurt worse in the days ahead. But the weight was gone. The pressure of trying to be two different people, of trying to hide who she really was, of trying to make sense of her fractured mind.... Gone. Her facade of contentment lay in pieces around her feet. But it exposed the infection that had been her self-loathing as well. She’d hated being a mutant, because those around her hated mutants. It had taken the destruction of her glass palace to make her realize that it wasn’t even her world to begin with. Someone else had built the glass around her, and she had let them. But now all of that was gone. Washed away in the cascading rain. Cleansed by her namesake.

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Finally. She felt.... clean. A bit lost, but.... clean.

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Now came time to rebuild. This time, she’d build her own world.

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