AN: Hey guys, so at long last i have final decided to post this fanfic. I know that I've been promising on my page for a long time to post this but would you believe me if I told you it's taken me over a year just to get my laptop working again? Long story short, the operating system crashed and locked ALL my files completly. I only just got it fixed a couple of weeks ago and I've been too swamped with law school to even think about up dating anything. Anyhow this little bit had been laying in storage for over two years now and I figured with the new X-Men: Apocolapes out, it would be a good time to let it rip. This story takes place during the older time lines before Days Of Future Pasts, it kinda has to for the plot to work and it is an OC based story much like all my other ones. I just loved Nightcralwer so much when i was a kid. In fact i still do. Hence this little monster.

Disclaimer: Prime's sparkling doesn't own X men or any of its characters. She only owns her OC's.

Citisism on the work is welcome, Flames will be used on Logan's grill to cook marshmellows.

CHAPTER 1

THE BLUE MAN

'Cause we are broken
What must we do to restore
Our innocence
And oh, the promise we adored?
Give us life again
'Cause we just wanna be whole'

Paramore: Broken

The mansion was quiet during the night, something she had thought impossible at one stage. Max loved it when the silence took over the estate and all the noise rushed out in one blast of warm air as everyone slipped into a slumber till the next morning. It was the one chance she had at the end of each day to simply think, without worrying whether her Shields were strong enough to protect herself from the mirage of emotions that the other children gave off during the daytime and the occasional nightmare at night. Her sapphire coloured eyes drew themselves across the back yard where a brave squirrel was tempting the vast green battered ground to rescue itself a meal for the winter while the trees were distracted and battled with one another on the side lines. Above them, the moon watched on entertained by the howling wind's puppets and bathed the house in its safe glow as a precaution that its festivities did not become out of hand.

Behind the thin glass, Max fought a battle of her own as she tucked the stray neon blue strand of hair back behind her pointed ears. She did not care that she was awake after the curfew and sitting in front of a large window in the middle of the corridor in the middle of the night. Her thoughts were turbulent as she tried to organize them over the back flow of emotions that she had kept bottled up during the day. She snorted internally at the idea that most humans gave to the thought of empathic powers, ignorant of how far they would have had to go to protect their minds from everyone else. She understood where they came from through. Bonds were wonderful, if they were strong she could have been anywhere in the world and still have not felt alone, or could have just curled up in the thick blankets of love and affection that they offered when distressed. They ensured her safety and she could learn valuable lessons from those close to her when they let her into their thoughts. But at the same time, they could be a person's worst nightmare as well. A broken bond was painful, and Max had already lost so many from it as well. Her thoughts fluttered back to her current mood and the empty space in her head ached in reminder.

Cathy.

Her best friend.

Her sister.

Her twin.

Max closed her eyes as she fought against the soldiers of salt that attempted to run AWOL from her eyes. Cathy had not deserved to die. Not after she had finally found Joseph, her Alter. Not when she had been carrying the little boy that she never even got the chance to hold in her arms and hear cry for the first to time. But she did, when Patrick had taken his last breath after the strange men with weapons put a bullet in his chest for a few loose change in his pocket and his wedding ring one night and destroyed the powerful bond that they had shared. Or at least that's what Max had told herself when she had been forced to watch her wonderful sister that had been happy and excited about life wither away into a creature that she no longer recognized. She had spent days at her deathbed trying to beg her not to go, not to let anything more happen to them after their father had followed their mother into the grave in early similar circumstances, but in the end it had been in vain and they had to bury her next to her beloved husband as the sister bond snapped in Max's mind. Leaving behind only agony and loneliness.

Tears ran down Max's pale cheek as she remembered the feeling of loss and a longing to die. It had been three years since the Cathy's death, exactly three years that very night since her entire world had shattered around her and changed for the worst. She wordlessly peered out over the garden again and noticed that the moon had grown dark looming clouds as though it mourned her loss with her.

That night she dreamt of the blue man again. She did not exactly understand why she always drifted off to someone she had never met before, yet knew it had to do with her Alter, the one she had never managed to find. She met him in their landscape as she always did; she on her side where the soft warm beach sand fluttered around her feet and the waves swished and swirled like a heartbeat nearby. He stood on his end of the area, designed like a giant circus that smelled constantly of popcorn and food. A half ring formed where he did his practices and it blended into the sand on her side like a half moon line. The interior of the tent was covered in luxurious reds and purples and a trapeze line covered the near top end of it. The blue man was hanging from the rope when she appeared on the edge of her landscape, not from his arms but the long tail he had. She could admit that he had freaked her out at first when she had seen him, but now it seemed as though she had known him for years. She sat down at the barrier and simply watched was he did a routine on the line. His movements were smooth and well-practiced and the ease that he traveled with his moves astounded her. She loved the expression of freedom and the relaxed look his face gave as he swung from one side to the other. Recently he had seemed to be under a lot of pressure and something had felt wrong with him for the last few months. She wondered what had been bothering him as his face had often broken into strained expressions of pain.

He stopped with a pose on the mat in the half circle. She felt like clapping but froze when he looked her way. She could have sworn that he had noticed her appearance. He did not see her and she sucked in a breath when he removed his old shirt after a moment, feeling like some peeking tom. Despite his demon like appearance, Max could only think that this man was something from heaven. And that god had been having a good day when he had made him. He was tall and lithe frame wise, muscles taunt and not overly large. Sweat dribbled deliciously over the tattoos carved into his chest, each strange and curving around one another like a continuous pattern all the way up to his face. She had always wondered what they were in her spare time and the wanton to run her fingers over each marking was strong. His eyes were a glowing honey color that constantly seemed to see right through her and his hair was a mess of short black curls that she longed to be able to run her fingers through. The man muttered something, though the barrier prevented her from hearing what exactly. She saw him kneel down and pull off the rosemary he kept wrapped around his three fingered hand and his waist. She had found out that he was very religious during the first two or three times she had seen him after she had turned eight years old. Max wondered what he was praying about and found her thoughts going back to her sister again. Her parents had brought them up to respect all cultures and had not forced them into any belief, which made sense considering her mother had been a catholic but their father an atheist. They had wanted their children to have the choice of choosing their own paths and Max liked the idea of having something to look forward to after death. She wandered what her sister was doing now, up in the clouds with her Alter and the child that never got to live outside of her womb. Was she watching over her? Was she happy? Max did not know. She did not know exactly what else to do. She looked over at the still praying blue man in wonder and tentivly sent out a prayer to anyone that was listening for her sister's happiness. When she opened her eyes, she noticed that the blue man had begun to waver and wobble as he faded away and sighed. She knew it meant that he was waking up and returning to the real world out there. She wished he would stay, desperately. She knew that the moment he left that she would once again be alone in her mind and feels the pain that losing the bonds her family's deaths had caused overwhelm her. As the last light of color left the fading form that had been the praying man, Max found herself be reminded of it and a small part of her withered away and began to die.

She watched for a moment, taking in the bright festive colors of the walls and then smells of the strange man's landscape, before she raised herself to her feet from where she had been sitting in the warm sand. She slowly trekked across the beach and sighed to herself as she moved further into her subconscious. The sand disappeared and she noticed the new cracks that had formed in what was left of her soul.