Cecilia Reyes

PHASE 1

PHASE 2

Cecilia Reyes
Portrayed by Rosario Dawson
Codename:	None
Affiliations:	Medlab, Staff, X-Corps
Birthdate:	January 6, 1981

Journal:	xp_reyes
Player:	Michael

Recently returned to the school after some time away, Cecilia Reyes takes herself - and her job as a doctor - very seriously. The mutant part she's still getting used to.

Details

Character Journal: xp_reyes

Real Name: Cecilia Reyes

Codename: none

Aliases: Cece, Dr. Reyes

First Appearance: July 31, 2004

Date of Birth: January 6, 1981

Place of Birth: Bronx, New York

Citizenship: US

Relatives: Father Alejandro Reyes (deceased), mother Maria Espinosa Reyes (deceased), brother Miguel Reyes

Education: NYU School of Medicine (pre-med), Columbia University School of Medicine (med school), Westchester College (an effort to get some classes back on her transcript in 2004), University of California San Diego Medical Center (residency/surgical fellowship; 2005-2010), University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (trauma surgery fellowship, 2011-2012)

Relationship Status: single

Occupation: Trauma surgeon. Currently running the medlab at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters after being a project employee at X-Corps.

Team Affiliation: none

Biography

Childhood

Cecilia would never admit it, but she thinks her childhood ended at age six.

Before six, she was happy in the barrios of the Bronx. Her family was poor, but (and this may just be her romanticizing things), they were happy. Her father Alejandro worked a lot, but always had time for the children. Her mother sang while she fried tostones. Even the piragüeros seemed to come by more often. It was a time before she was aware other people lived differently; before she realized her Latin American heritage somehow marked her as different and separate from society. Well before she recognized that in order to live the life her parents had dreamed, she would have to work far harder than she’d imagined.

Then, her father died. And she remembers it as suddenly as this: one day he went to work, and he didn't come home. (For all her medical training, she's never quite tried to get his charts or to figure out what happened, though she always assumed it was aneurysm.) The day before, they'd been at the Bronx Zoo. She'd been tired, and he'd teased her about her desire to be carried until she finally gave in. That's, as far as Cecilia was concerned, when she grew up.

From then on, things were different. Her focus was to become a doctor – the kind of doctor that might be able to prevent someone from suddenly dropping dead on an MTA bus. It was just as well. Maria Reyes wasn't singing anymore. The crack epidemic was wreaking havoc on their neighborhood, and neither Cecilia nor her brother Miguel were allowed to spend much time outside. And she never really wanted a piragua anyway. Study, study, study. Get good grades. Study some more.

Discoveries & Further Education

Everything was going right on track – praise from teachers, a proud mami, boyfriends that weren't willing to share their time with libraries – until Cece Reyes discovered she was mutante. Her best friend's boyfriend, drunk and high, had tried to approach her. She was terrified, and something – some power forced him back. She hadn't yet graduated from high school, but she knew something wasn't right. A nagging voice told her to suppress everything, and she drew further inward. Being a Latina wannabe doctor in the South Bronx was hard enough. But a mutant? Forget it.

So, a quiet Cecilia Reyes got a scholarship to NYU, and she begged her sponsors to spring for a single. She did research, she aced her classes, she graduated summa cum laude. Then she went to Columbia for medical school — her dream since she'd watch doctors in scrubs getting off at 116th Street on the subway — and everything fell apart.

Phase 1

Xavier's School

The Columbia massacre meant Cecilia was suddenly “outed.” Not sure where to turn, she ended up at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, guided in large part by a CNN Special.

But Cecilia's stay at the X-Mansion was brief. And that was hardly a surprise, given how the move was a knee-jerk reaction to being forced to confront things she hadn't dealt with in years. She'd been taught to use her powers, and she assisted Red X after Hurricane Charley. She worked in the lab. She taught basic first aid to junior mutants who seemed way too young to be burdened with so much (although, Shan would reminder her often, she was in the same boat). And for the first time in years, she made friends. With Xi'an Coy Manh, especially, and then there was roomie Madelyn Bartlet, Alison Blaire, Jean-Paul Beaubier and Illyana Rasputin.

Still, living at the mansion didn't offer enough solace for Cecilia to figure things out. People there — specifically Sarah Morlocke had killed, and nobody seemed to mind. Then Haroun's casual revelation of the X-Men made her worry she wasn't safe in Westchester.

The intrusion of telepaths made it tough for Cecilia to sort out her own thoughts, and that's what she needed. Magic and the supernatural bothered and confused her even more, and once Lockheed hatched and S'ym arrived, she realized she'd had enough. It was time to face the world again and to figure out who this mutante boricua should be. She packed her bags for an apartment in Salem Center and moved out, enrolled in some quick classes at Westchester College and started planning for the future – one that took her far away from the X-Men and New York.

Willfully Forgetting

With grades and a pedigree like hers — plus, she presumed, an affirmative action quota to fill — UC San Diego was happy to take her for residency. When they asked, she blamed the time off on a family illness. Armed with more control over her powers, she was able to focus back on the medicine. Surgery, with its long hours, appealed to her. Epidemiology, with its young upstarts trying to find a key to mutants? Cecilia avoided that like a plague. In the operating room, there was no time to think on anything more than the task at hand. She was aware of the things going on in the world, and the increasingly strange news from New York, but she planned to stay in Southern California. Nobody looked twice at a Latina in San Diego.

Plans shift, though, and when her brother Miguel joined the Army and sent missives from Afghanistan, Cecilia decided to become a trauma surgeon. She was moved by his description of people who could pick up and heal. They'd work with anything, they'd move fast and they'd save lives. Fellowships were limited, and despite a few compelling East Coast options, she was determined to get the best education. Which meant heading to Philadelphia, a place far more in the orbit of the X-Men.

Forging Onward

With proximity to a mutant epicenter now threatening to unravel her new life, Cecilia decided to cut ties. She deleted an old e-mail address, only giving the new one to Shan. When a Westchester area code popped up on her phone, she'd ignore the call. Short of caring for mutants at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's clinics, she wasn't willing to join her former colleagues.

Her trauma surgery fellowship ended, as they do, and there were a few options: A job with the Army had to be ruled out. Joining Red Cross would have meant contact with Red X, and that would have meant getting in touch with people she'd wanted to leave behind. Her most compelling offers were from New York, and a part of her wanted return. But Cecilia Reyes had spent the last 7 years running, and she wasn't ready to stop yet.

That's when Doctors without Borders called her. They actually called her. Genosha was a mess and they were wondering if she'd be interested in helping with the aftermath of the government upheaval. She said she wasn't, but she wanted to keep talking.

And so in 2012, Cecilia Reyes joined the Doctors without Borders crew in Honduras, helping victims of drug-fueled gang violence. Her colleagues came and went as the violence intensified, but Cecilia stayed. She was doing strong work here, and it was what she'd trained for. Besides, by this point, she'd come into control of her powers. A bullet wasn't much of a concern.

Conflicting Desires

As conflict around the globe grew, though, Doctors without Borders started to blanch, and they begin pulling operations. When the drug cartels in Latin America began to ramp up their battles, Dr. Reyes knew it'd be a matter of time before she got the call. The one telling her to pack her things and come home.

She'd wanted to stay, but it was probably the right time to leave. Her brother had an extended leave coming up, and she hadn't seen him since well before she left the States. Plus New York Pres had been emailing her intermittently about interviewing for the damn job they'd wanted to give her back in 2012. And after years of closing herself off, for the first time, she started to feel lonely.

So in January 2014, as the gangs started to turn their guns on the doctors, the call came. Doctors were being evacuated, and her protestations wouldn't save her. People had to leave whether they liked it or not.

Return to Xavier's

With little time to prepare, she flew into LaGuardia, spent two nights in a hotel weighing her options and then finally took a cab to the X-Mansion. Rent was expensive in Manhattan, and she needed time to figure some things out before moving anywhere or taking a job.

Besides, a decade had passed she'd last spoken to Charles Xavier. And she probably owed him an apology.

It was surprisingly easy for Cecilia to settle in to mansion life despite the long time that had passed and the many new faces that greeted her upon her arrival. She made friends quickly with Wade Wilson, and later became his primary doctor after a fight between Wade and Jean Grey (whom she was also pleased to meet, considering the other woman had been dead last time Cecilia had been at the mansion). In May 2014 she accompanied Red-X on a mission to help evacuate the mutant island Avalon before a tsunami. She witnessed Hope Abbott being washed away by the tsunami but was unable to save her, much to her distress, and the guilt haunted her for weeks after. It also led to her resuming her powers training, not wanting to be in a position of being useless ever again.

She also took a job with X-Corps, acting as its medical expert with assistance from Matt Murdock (who had by this point become a friend). She also found herself in a unique position in June 2014 when she and David Haller found Molly Hayes playing hero in Salem Center and caught Namor Mazur intervening on her behalf. Haller and Cecilia managed to get them both out without any casualties, and later in the month, she participated in a Red-X fundraiser, where Arthur Centino bought a date with her. The date went well all around. In October, she went to Arthur's book signing. Arthur behaved like he remembered nothing about the night, and unable to handle his condescension, she slapped him. After the store was struck by lightning, she went into doctor mode to make sure no one was hurt... and then got drunk at a bar. All and all, it was a sub-par night.

Arthur later crossed paths with her again after his supposed death when he called her, clearly confused and asking for help, thinking she was part of security company. She alerted the X-Men to what was going on, telling them he was in Nevada. When he moved into the mansion and learned more about his situation, she found it difficult to hit the reset button but vowed to try.

The End of the World

Following the destruction of Muir Island at the hands of the Brotherhood and the Dark Riders, Cecilia joined a team in Cairo, Egypt to try and find answers. While there the team was attacked by (horribly dressed) alternate versions of themselves, and Cecilia was nearly compressed to death by a power-adept, cruel version of herself.

The mansion later came under attack by the Dark Phoenix, and alternate version of Jean Grey. Cecilia worked with Amanda Sefton and Billy Kaplan to create a forcefield to fend the Dark Phoenix off, but they were taken down. Billy sacrificed himself to give Cecilia more power, and while the event shook her, it gave her the resolve to fight on.

Phase 2

A New World

Despite it all, Cecilia managed to live long enough to be rescued with the others by Xorn, who created a new universe for the survivors to live in after their old one fell apart. Cecilia instantly threw herself into work, organizing the medlab (now hers to run as she saw fit) and generally doing everything in her power not to think too hard about everything that had happened. The discovery that Clint's dog, Pizza Dog, had somehow survived gave her something else to focus on; she took the dog in as her own.

Cecilia adjusted relatively quickly to life in the new universe, aided by the continued friendship of Wade and Arthur. The appearance of a new Jean Grey threw her for a loop, at did the arrival of Illyana Rasputin, a far different version of one of Cecilia's first friends at Xavier's a decade or so earlier. Still, she couldn't shake her experience with the malicious, power-hungry version of herself she'd met months earlier. The conflict over whether she had that kind of viciousness within her came to a head in December 2015 during an investigation into the drug gang destroying a mutant health clinic she'd set up in Honduras. The trip (her first non-apocalyptic experience with a team of X-Men) led to her nearly being killed by the drug gang's leader; she was forced to take Rave in order to survive, and while under the influence, she essentially maimed him.

Since then, Cecilia has been forced to confront the nature of her mutant abilities and has been doing some soul-searching over whether she's truly a healer.

2017, thankfully, was quiet, save for contention with her patients and the parade of injured people going through her med lab. She attended the Women's March in January, and took a well-earned vacation in July.

Physical Characteristics

Cecilia's a lean, mean healing machine — or she would be if she weren't blessed with the curves that make Puerto Rican women so appealing to Puerto Rican men. Her dark skin is marred by more than few scars, consequences of fights with the X-Men and some drunk brawls in Honduras her powers wouldn't help her out of. Cecilia alternates between glasses and contacts, depending largely on whether she feels like putting much effort into her appearance. Same goes for her hair, which she'll often leave in braids so she can avoid too much daily maintenance.

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 124 lbs

Eyes: brown

Hair: brown, often in braids.

Other Features: A tattoo of the Puerto Rican flag on her left shoulder.

Powers

Cecilia hasn't experimented with her powers much, but she is able to generate a force field around herself to protect her from physical attacks or energy blasts. Impacts on the field do cause her pain, even if they don't damage her. In the time since leaving Xavier's, she has learned to control her power somewhat: She can now stop the field from manifesting at inconvenient moments (mid-coitus, for example) and shape it to protect her from specific threats. Despite her best efforts, she hasn't learned to expand the field to protect others – something she hopes her return to the X-Mansion will help her do. And while Cecilia suspects she could shape her field to use it as a weapon, she has never been in situation that called for it — and she's not eager to test it out.

Overuse of her powers drains her and exhausts her; once, on a mission with Red X back in the day, she passed out from trying to protect herself. Shaping the force field drains her quickly, and since she's never had any formal training, the shapes are crude. She can't protect herself from telepathy. And if she's in a heightened emotional state, her force field won't manifest. (Since she's a reluctant mutant, she's rarely been in a situation where this has been too much of a downside.)