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Moment of Awesome - The Stepford Cuckoos/Fourteen: Upon discovering a future 'child', Fourteen finally lets Emma Frost know how she feels. If it had been any other moment, 14 might have been able to maintain her composure. She could have swallowed her anger, schooled her expression, and kept her business to herself. She could have taken in the anger through Sophie, and vented it out through Irma or Celeste or any of the others in the privacy of her room. She could have held her composure, not given away her emotions to the others in the room. Give them power. But it wasn't any other moment. It wasn't any other person. And it was like poking an old wound, one that had never been given the chance to properly heal. And 14 lost her self control. ~You can't even say the word, can you? Can you?! It's 'Daughter'. DAUGH. TER. You can't even pretend that you care, can you?~ Emma flinched at the accusation flung at her, at the justified anger that roiled underneath it. She closed her eyes, unable to look at Sophie for a moment. ~I don't have the right,~ she said softly. ~I haven't earned the right to call you... to call any of you my daughter. My daughters.~ ~You didn't have to earn it! You just have to be there!~ There was a deep thrum over the psychic line, the mental equivalent of a deep and shaky breath. ~Do you have any idea how hard it is to give up on family? How much it hurts?~ A flower of grief bloomed through her mind. ~Do you even remember that I sent you a Christmas gift for the first three years after you found me? Or was it just another box you tossed in your closet at the end of the day?~ ~Every time I tried, I failed. Effort wasted for nothing. I give up. And eventually, I'd try again. Every time, nothing. And it hurt every time.~ ~I kept them,~ replied Emma, softly. ~All of them. I couldn’t… I didn’t open them. I didn’t dare. I was so angry. At first. Not at you, at any of you. At what you were proof of. At what someone had done to me to make you. I couldn’t… And then it was too long. Too late. I was… ashamed of what I had done to you. How could you want anything to do with me after what I had done to you? At how badly I had failed you.~ For a moment, Emma’s face distorted with pain and then it smoothed out again. ~I didn’t think you could ever forgive me for that.~ ~So you ran,~ 14 sneered, letting her feelings flood through the link. There was a bit of disdain there, but mostly there was an overwhelming sense of hurt and loneliness. ~You didn't know me. You didn't try to know me, but you decided you knew how I felt.~ 14 hated how her hands were shaking, across all bodies. Hated how she could tell her anger was being drowned out by her sadness and hurt and all the other emotions that said 'I care. you can hurt me with this.' ~I needed you to at least try. I needed you to be my mother.~