Author's Note: Howdy all. Hope you're doing well. Just another story I felt like tweaking. They aren't big changes. But they're there.
This is my first Cyclops story. I always felt so sorry for him in the movies. Never getting over Jean. And it really angered me that they killed him. After he pined and mourned and went and found her... They just up and kill him.
So this is a little something that I wrote to make that little death problem go away. It's his chance to start moving on with his life. A chance he didn't get in the movies.
He had to get away.
There was no maybe.
There was no thought put into the urge.
But, of course there wasn't.
It was an urge.
No thought ever went into an urge because it wasn't a want or what one might think they need.
It was what one needed.
And he needed to get out of that damn mansion.
It had been months since it happened.
Hell, the first anniversary of that horrid day was creeping up on him.
And he was still haunted by her memory.
He could still smell her, the oh so expensive perfume that had been her one guilty pleasure, in their room.
He could still hear her laugh, refined and musical.
And he could swear, if he turned just quick enough, he could still see her, turning a corner or walking through a door.
But he couldn't really.
Any of it.
It was all just a memory.
A shadow of the woman who used to walk these halls and bring life to the mansion.
A mere ghost.
And Scott couldn't sit around this mansion anymore, moping, pining and being haunted by a woman he would never see again.
Even now, sitting in his damn car, he was agitated by the missing woman, vulnerable to the onslaught of her that surrounded him.
He was starting to regret his decision not to just take his bike and leave.
But he knew that would have been just as horrible an idea as getting in this car had been.
Because if he had been on the bike, he would have thought about Logan.
And that would lead to more thoughts of her.
More painful thoughts than the ones invading him now.
It didn't matter what the resident feral said.
It didn't matter that she had turned Logan away.
Because Scott knew the truth, had seen it in her final moments. She had wanted him to. Pushed through the chaos around them and shoved it into him because she couldn't die without finally being honest with him.
She may have chosen him, but there was a part of her that loved Logan, too.
Jean had loved them both with her last breath.
And that was what truly hurt.
It hurt more than losing her, knowing that he would never see or hold her again.
That's what kept him awake at night, terrified that she would come back to him in his dreams and he would have to face her.
Face the love she felt for another man.
A man that he could never be.
That's what kept him alert through the sunlit hours of the day, busying himself with menial tasks he, nor anyone else at the mansion, had any use for.
That's what made it hard to breath.
And that's what made him want death to come to him. Crawl over him. Caress him as a lover would. Claim him as its own and never let another have him.
And that was why he was speeding away from the mansion as fast as he could, hoping to leave behind Jean and Logan and the shell of a once strong, good man.
But he realized, seeing her in the passenger seat from the corner of his eye, he would never be able to outrun her if she still with him.
He sighed.
She would always be with him if he didn't get rid of this thing.
Jean had been the one who wanted a Porsche. Not that he had wanted something sensible or boring. Scott had just always been a classic kind of guy.
But he had gotten it.
For her.
This was always the car they took out on their dates.
This was always the car she made him drive when she begged him to take her for a drive just for the hell of it.
This was the car Jean knew would loosen him up.
This was the car she had thought would change him.
But it hadn't changed him then just as it wasn't doing its job now.
He slammed a hand against the wheel, grief morphing into anger.
Anger that she had wanted to change him, that she had never truly loved him. Rather the idea of what he could be.
Anger that he couldn't be that for her, couldn't change.
Anger that Logan had come around. Been exactly what Jean needed. Taken her from him.
Anger that he hadn't taken the bike instead of this damn piece of crap.
Anger because, even now, furious as he was, he still missed her.
Still loved her.
He turned his head toward the side of the road, trying to rid her from his line of sight, even if she was only in his peripheral vision.
And that was when he saw it.
A billboard advertising Browning Storage Facility.
Perfect, Scott thought as he quickly changed lanes and got off at the closest exit.
He drove through the streets of some little no name town, making his way toward the familiar storage building.
They stored everything from boxes to appliances, boats to cars.
Cars much like the one Scott had waiting in one of the larger storage lockers.
He had bought it during his and Jean's first fight. He never intended to drive the thing and Jean never even knew he had it. But it made some part of him happy every time the two fought, knowing that he had something Jean would hate.
Very few people knew that Scott Summers had a bit of a vindictive side.
He skidded to a stop outside of the building and jumped out of the much hated Porsche.
He walked over to the oversized garage and tapped in the code that opened his locker compartment.
And there it was.
His one and only baby.
She was still in pristine condition and just waiting to get out on the open road.
"Well, that's just what you're going to get."
Climbing into the beautiful 1968 Dodge Charger, he opened the glove box, pulled out the keys and started the ignition.
The car began to rumble around him and Scott couldn't help but wonder why he had ever let Jean talk him out of a classic beauty like this one.
He backed out of the garage, not bothering to get out and close the door.
Making his way back to the road that would take him back to the highway, he passed the Porsche.
She was still waiting in the passenger seat, waiting for him to return.
But when she saw him in the muscle car, she started frowning, her arms crossed over her chest.
Scott relished in it.
After all the pain she had caused him in the past few months, a little anger was the least he could giver her.
So he sped away, the highway waiting for him.
And he felt a freedom that he hadn't felt in years.
A freedom that one only felt when tied down by nothing.
Not life.
Or responsibilities.
Or love.
But what really had him smiling, had his laugh accompanying the purr of the machine beneath him, wasn't a freedom he hadn't known he had missed.
It was the absence of memories.
It was the absence of pain.
It was the absence of her.
And he couldn't remember ever feeling anything better.
Author's Note: It's not closure. And it's not him fully moving on. But I think it's a good start.
Drop a review if you have the time.
Thanks for reading.
Writing Rebel