As the display built to a crescendo, water shot skyward in a magnificent fountain easily a hundred meters across, rising three or four times that into the air, better than a thousand feet, generating a shock wave that bent the lodgepole pines around Scott almost double and knocked him off his feet.
He picked himself up, stunned, senses kicking into proper gear, reacting now from his training and experience as Cyclops. And he found himself facing a radiance as welcome and comforting as the morning sun.
“Jean?” He didn’t believe it as he spoke, certain that somewhere along the way he’d stumbled headlong into madness, and he was beholding what he yearned for rather than what was.
Her laughter convinced him otherwise.
He could feel her in his heart, the special rapport that had always joined them, casting its warmth throughout his soul, spring arriving to a realm too long beset by the cruelest of winters.
She was fire.
She was life incarnate, in all its glory.
She was his love.
And the smile she gave him when she heard that thought proved it beyond all doubt.
“Scott,” Jean called, laughing with delight at the sight of him, yet still skittish to somehow find herself alive once more. Those last moments were still vivid in her thoughts. The wall of water had struck like it was made of steel, shattering her on contact; she didn’t even have a chance to drown. Everything was over in an instant.
Or so she’d thought.
“How?” he asked, reaching out in surprise to her hair, which now fell in glossy waves to the small of her back.
“Dunno,” she told him truthfully.
And for a long while there were no more words, nothing at all save for two lovers holding each other close, savoring the joy that comes with finding your heart’s desire. Neither had ever been more happy, or at peace.
Jean pulled back, just a little.
“I want to see your eyes,” she told him, reaching for his glasses. “Take these off.”
“Jean—don’t!”
She shook her head. “It’ll be all right.”
“You’ve seen what my optic blasts can do. You know these glasses and my visor are the only things that can control them!”
“Trust me,” she said. “I can control them.”
She laid a palm against his cheek, and he couldn’t help leaning into it. Smiling in that special way that was for him alone, Jean slipped her hand along the line of his jaw, her forehead creasing with concern at how harshly the last few years had dealt with him, stroking the curve of his ear in a way that made him tremble.
She thought her own heart would crack when he brushed his lips against hers, and wanted to cry to the Heavens that he didn’t have to worry, that there was nothing he could do to hurt her. Instead, she returned the kiss, both of them eager for more.
“No more glasses, Scott,” she said, as she gently plucked them from his face, “no more fear. I want to see your eyes.”
They were tightly closed.
“Open them. Please. You can’t hurt me.”
He did, because she asked, because she knew at bedrock that he would always trust her, without hesitation or question, because she held dominion over the best part of him.
Nothing happened.
She’d put a telekinetic film over his eye sockets, configured by her thoughts to the same resonance frequency as the ruby quartz crystal of his lenses, holding in check the power within more easily than the glasses ever did.
“They say,” she told him, “the eyes are the windows to the soul.”
He couldn’t hide a bit of bitterness: “Imagine what that says about me?”
Jean would have none of it: “Yours, like your soul, my love, are beautiful.”
Looking into Jean’s eyes reminded Scott of staring up at the stars, back before his power manifested, when he was a kid, with a kid’s dreams, when he could see the world through normal eyes. In that moment, he knew he beheld forever, as rich with endless possibilities as it was with mysteries. And, unbidden, jarring, a warning: Danger.
One kiss begat another, each caress built on the one before, stoking a passion more intense than either had ever known. They surfed the crest of a tsunami, a wave that would engulf the world, where one misstep would mean oblivion, and neither cared.
They were happy, and they wanted it to last forever.
Then, the light in Jean’s eyes turned to fire.
They opened wide, her lips turning from the latest kiss to an O of alarm, shared in that perfect moment by Scott. Something basic had changed, and neither knew what would come next, nor how to cope.
Scott started to shiver, his skin like the corona of a star boiling off excess plasma.
He looked into the eyes of the woman he loved and saw something that had never been before, that had never even been suspected, and he knew what was coming, both now and in the days ahead.
And because it was his turn, because he knew what it would mean to her, he gave her a smile, the one that came to him when he realized this was the woman he loved and that, now and forever, she would love him. He gave her trust, he gave her strength, he gave her courage.
Not forgiveness, though—because for him, there was nothing to forgive.
Then the world went white.
Two thousand miles away, Charles Xavier screamed.
For Logan, it was a spike through the skull, a lance of pain not even his healing factor could mitigate.
He threw himself out into the hallway, staggering because his head was so screwed up he couldn’t walk straight. He heard cries and whimpers, and more than a few sobs, from every direction. Making his way through the rapidly crowding halls, he passed students by the score, some holding their heads with pain, a few nauseous to the point of vomiting. All were scared, demanding answers he didn’t have or comfort he was ill-equipped to offer.
Ororo caught up to him at the base of the Grand Staircase. She had farther to come, from her attic loft, but she could always move faster.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“No clue,” he replied, and bulled his way into Xavier’s study.
“Professor,” Ororo called, while simultaneously from Logan, “You okay?”
He was sitting at his desk, pale as the sheet of paper held in trembling hands.
“I’m fine,” he assured them, although neither believed it. Logan could smell blood, and a quick glance at the trash can revealed a badly stained handkerchief that Xavier had used to wipe clean his bloody nose. Forebrain hemorrhages, Logan knew, because he made it his business to catalogue the strengths and weaknesses of people who mattered, and of those he may one day have to fight. A major sign of trouble in a telepath.
“You need to get to Alkali Lake,” Xavier ordered, in a tone he rarely ever used with the two of them. It mandated absolute, immediate obedience, no back talk, no bullshit. “Now!”
They went.
They got the Blackbird prepped and airborne in record time. Ororo took the plane suborbital, shooting almost straight up once they cleared the launch bay, arcing north by west as they cleared the atmosphere along a track and at a speed that would bring them to their destination in barely a quarter hour.
Neither said a word during the ascent. Ororo was busy piloting, while Logan struggled not to lose what remained of last night’s dinner. The intensity behind Xavier’s command had been such that there’d been no time for uniforms. They’d departed wearing the clothes on their backs.
“Shit,” Logan grumped as he dropped into the copilot’s seat.
“You don’t want to go back to Alkali Lake,” Ororo noted.
He said nothing at first, but instead rubbed his fingers over the space between the knuckles where his claws were housed. So much of his life was bound up in that place: It was there Logan had become the Wolverine. It was there he’d found a place and purpose greater than himself. And there he’d found the woman who made it all worthwhile, who had owned him from the moment their eyes met, only
to lose her, knowing that she loved another man more.
He figured his answer was too obvious to be spoken aloud. Instead, as Ororo canted the nose downward for reentry, he asked: “Do you?”
“No,” she said plainly. “I don’t.”
The hull heated with atmospheric friction and bucked like a mule as the Blackbird started the transition to the deeper atmosphere. Logan busied himself with his harness, growing less thrilled with every incident of turbulence.
“You know,” Storm said, “if you ever want to talk…”
“Oh yeah,” he retorted, “absolutely. That’s what I want.”
The look she tossed his way spoke volumes.
Damn, he thought, she’s a lot less of a princess than when I first rolled in the door. Still a long way from “just plain folks,” but she’s got possibilities.
“Look,” he said, the best he would offer in explanation, “talk is not what I do.”
Her sigh was even more devastating then the look.
“Right,” she said, her tone assuring him that this conversation was most definitely not finished. “Same old Logan.”
He wasn’t, really, any more than she was the “same old Storm.” But the oldest habits are the hardest to kick.
One of the glass panels on the flight control console generated a schematic map of the valley and the lake. As they continued their descent, and their scanning array got down to business, a dot of light began pulsing. Logan didn’t need coordinates to pinpoint the location. It was within spitting distance of where Jean had died.
“ ’Ro?” he began to say, intending to make amends. But she didn’t give him the chance, throwing the Blackbird into a tight descending spiral that pinned him to his chair and made him suddenly wonder if she was going to land the damn aircraft right on its pointy nose.
“Hold on,” she told him, after the fact, which was just about as unnecessary a command as he’d ever been given.
She flattened out at a hundred meters, shifting to vertical flight mode and skimming the treeline like they were flying a helicopter. Logan had taken his turn in the simulator; if the need ever arose, he could take the controls. But with Storm it was different; she handled the plane as if it were part of her. She could dance it through maneuvers the others wouldn’t dream of trying—except maybe Scott. He was as much a natural flier as she was and the only one to ever match her skill in the air.
Unfortunately, there was no sign of the ground. Below thirty meters everything was shrouded in fog, for as far as the eye could see, from one end of the valley to the other.
“We got nowhere to land,” Logan commented.
Without a word, Ororo’s eyes went momentarily white and, just like that, the fogbank melted obligingly away, revealing that they were right where they wanted to be.
Eyes normal again, she cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Anytime.” Smooth as could be, without even a bump, she eased the ebony aircraft down from the sky. “In preparation for landing, please restore your seats to their upright and locked position, store all carry-on items and tray tables, and make sure your seat belts are securely fastened.”
He gave her a look; she gave him back a smile.
The moment passed. They got ready for business.
With his first step off the ramp, Logan knew it was bad. Every sense screamed alarm—the air smelled wrong, the ground felt wrong. There were no natural sounds, nothing to indicate the passing of a breeze between the trees, or water lapping against the shore. Not the slightest hint of animals of any kind. Logan wasn’t surprised at the last; the part of him that was most like them was shrieking to flee this haunted, accursed place. And Ororo, whose sensitivity to the world around her was just as acute, seemed spooked as well.
Even the crunch of boots on snow was strangely muted, reminding Logan of an anechoic chamber that deadened every sound.
Something caught his attention, right at the edge of his peripheral vision, tumbling end-over-end as though possessing a personal exemption from the laws of gravity—and of motion as well, Logan realized, as the object accelerated past him, not the slightest bit affected by the resistance of the air it passed through.
He moved ahead with a silence and a fluid grace that belied his personality, gliding through the forest without making the slightest noise, or leaving any sign.
With a hand gesture, he motioned for Ororo to halt while he took a closer look at some leaves on a low-hanging branch. They were thick with moisture from the fog, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. His lips tightened, while Ororo’s formed a small O of astonishment as she joined him; the water was dripping up the leaf and falling towards the sky.
Logan held a hand over the leaf. It felt perfectly normal—except that when the droplets splashed against his palm, they flowed up and around his hand and then plopped free to continue on their way.
Ororo moved on ahead, while Logan homed in on another object, spinning lazily in midair, like a gyroscope that hadn’t quite wound all the way down. He hunkered down to watch, unsure if he wanted to break the spell by reaching out to touch the object. No damage that he could see, nor any sign of violence. Nothing at all out of the ordinary—except its presence, and what it was doing.
With an almost convulsive grab, he gathered Scott Summer’s ruby quartz glasses into his hand.
He was about to call out to Ororo when she beat him to it.
“Logan!”
Despite the flatness of the air, the urgency of her tone was plain. Shock, disbelief, fear, those reactions came through plainly and pulled him to her at a run.
He found Ororo down on the beach, kneeling over a body.
She looked up at him, stricken, but he wasn’t looking at her, he couldn’t bear to, not yet. He’d known at once who was lying there, without altogether knowing why, so he stalled by sweeping the vicinity for signs of anyone else.
Waste of effort. There was nothing to be seen.
He made a wider, more thorough sweep before they left, searching the ground while Ororo paced him overhead aboard the Blackbird, using its sensors. He already suspected they’d find nothing—you should expect so much only from a miracle—but they had to be sure.
“She’s alive,” Ororo said, as she turned the aircraft for home. There was a faint catch to her voice; she was both glad and scared, just like him.
He looked down at the glasses in his hand, at the still water of Alkali Lake, taking in a succession of slow, deep, calming breaths, unwilling to trust himself to speak, or take the smallest of actions, until he’d mastered control of himself. He understood instinctively about balance, without being able to articulate the why or wherefore; he had an equally instinctive comprehension of what had likely happened to Cyclops. And with it, a fury at whatever deity or fate or whoever had allowed it to happen. At bedrock, Logan was a far more honorable man than he’d ever admit; for him, there were some things that were fundamentally right, as there were others equally wrong. He’d always known that Creation wasn’t fair, his own life was proof of that, but that never stopped him from believing that it should be.
Wanting your heart’s desire was one thing. Having it—like this!
Thoughts for another time, perhaps. He shoved the glasses in his pocket and dropped to one knee, reaching out with unaccustomed tenderness to sweep a fall of dark auburn hair aside, and once more looked upon the face of Jean Grey.
“Jean Grey was the only Class Five mutant I’ve ever encountered,” Xavier told them a day later, back in the mansion’s infirmary. “Her potential was practically limitless.”
She lay on the examining table. Her body was dotted all over with direct sensors, surrounded by the information panels of their remote scanning counterparts. They provided a constant and comprehensive stream of data to the Institute mainframe for analysis, right down to the firing of her individual neural synapses, with the most current readings being projected on a phalanx of nearby flat-panel displays.
&nb
sp; Her vitals were totally nominal, and had been since they found her, wholly consistent with her last physical, not long before her death.
“Her mutation was seated in her limbic system,” Xavier continued, taking refuge from his own deep feelings by adopting his most professorial tone, “the unconscious part of her mind. And therein lay the danger.”
Logan snorted, gaining him a sharp look from both Xavier, seated in his wheelchair at Jean’s head, and Ororo, flanking him opposite Logan.
Logan didn’t bother explaining aloud; it wasn’t his way. He was still trying to figure things out himself. He’d never been one for movies, yet he found his inner self wandering through the fantastic vista of a planet called Altair IV, to behold the final, fatal argument between the hero, the woman he loved, and that woman’s father—a brilliant and loving, but ultimately misguided, scientist—on the nature of “monsters from the id.” The nightmares that come from our deepest, most primal and passionate subconscious, that go bump in the night.
Out loud, he said: “I thought you were treating her,” and got another warning glare from Ororo about his tone. He didn’t much care.
“I tried…”
Another image came, equally unbidden, that Logan couldn’t banish, mixing moments from the mission that led to Jean’s death—Magneto’s quiet, constant jibes about Xavier’s failure to treat the mutant son of William Stryker, Xavier’s own very real regret, and worst of all, the very real consequences that arose from that failure. Jason had been made by his father into a weapon; their attempt to stop the use of that weapon had led to Jean’s death.
If Xavier sensed Logan’s thoughts this time, he gave no sign as he laid his hands gently on Jean’s head and closed his eyes. The monitors flickered, charting his progress as he resumed treating her.
Logan paid him no attention. His concentration was locked on Jean’s face, as if his own senses could tell him what Xavier’s telepathy and devices could not.
X-Men(tm) The Last Stand Page 8
