Author: ghostwritten
Type of story: drabble
Season: set in the future sometime after season two
Warnings: character death
Disclaimer: I don't own MX. If I did, I'd be busy finding new and interesting ways of torturing Brennan, not sitting here writing fanfic. Needless to say, I have no money and I'm not making any from this, so you'd have to be a jerk to sue me. And that wasn't very polite, but do you have idea how many disclaimers I've written?!
Notes: I'm currently netless, but I've started having dreams where I'm online checking ff.net for updates, so I "borrowed" somebody else's computer and net connection. And then I discover that there's nothing new since the 9th! So naturally I decided to quickly write something and see if it would post (you know, just to appease my curiosity), hence this little fic. I normally don't post my drabbles. I only write them to get over writer's block, and then I trash them. But somebody had the nerve to comment that I only ever hurt Bren and Jesse while Adam gets left out. So this one is to prove that statement false. Oh, and this was written really fast and not beta-read, so read at your own risk.
-----
Adam's POV
-----
My dying was part of the plan all along.
However I choose to look at it, I knew. On some level - the part of my mind that returned the logical reasoning I refused to see - I was always aware this was the exchange I had agreed to. It could be no other way.
That knowledge was why I'd left my ring behind and gone without backup. The others wouldn't have allowed me to do this if I'd told them. They don't think that they're ready. And they aren't. In some ways, they never will be ready. The biggest changes in life are seldom prepared for accordingly. They happen based on snap decisions, often not your own, occurring in the blink of an eye, suddenly, unexpected. I wouldn't ask that they be ready. I simply have faith that they'll manage, that the mission will survive, without me.
They'll adapt to the change.
When I stepped onto that bridge (in hindsight a rather cliché meeting place), I think Jesse felt it as well. He understood that I came here to pay for his mistake.
My dear, naïve Jesse. He let himself knowingly fall in love with a GSAgent. Blinded by the trust that accompanies youth, he actually thought it could work. He thought that love truly could conquer all. But perhaps that isn't merely the innocence of youth. It's just Jesse's nature. Whether or not it was this girl who personally betrayed him, I'm still unclear. Yet he was set-up and captured the night after he left us.
The night he was supposed to propose.
After receiving Mason's demands, I couldn't turn my back on him. It was either my unconditional surrender, or Jesse would be killed.
I thought that when our fight switched from Gabriel Ashlocke back to Mason Eckhart that we'd gotten lucky. I thought we won against the greater of the two evils and were better off being left with the devil we know.
I was wrong.
But I do know Mason. I hate to admit we're a lot alike, he and I. Our lives have always been ruled by science. We also both share a darker side, obvious in how we approached our thirst for knowledge. And yet I do believe that when it comes right down to it, we are both men of our word.
If I hadn't offered my own defection in our personal war, my old colleague - my old friend - would have murdered one of the only four people in my life that I'm truly close to.
And Mason would have made certain Jesse's body was never found. The autopsy required by the police would reveal far too much. So instead he would simply disappear. Naturally he would have then be reported as missing. The story would be all over the local news. Misfortune always warrants broadcasting. The papers would headline it... for a while anyway.
Noah Kilmartin's son reported missing. Presumed kidnapped. Presumed dead.
But there would be no ransom demands, and there would be no body. Just the dangling mystery. In a week's time, the media would move on, and the public would forget. As happened with all things of this nature, attentions would change with the shifting of the wind. It would end as merely another sad story that had been gossiped about briefly. It would be dismissed with a shake of the head, perhaps a few sympathetic comments, but mainly people would view it with only the relief that it wasn't their child.
All Jesse had accomplished as a part of Mutant X, the person he'd become over the years... none of it would have been know. He'd have been just another statistic, another person who'd died far too young.
Jesse's death would only matter because he came from money, from "a good home."
Not even my own child. None of the children of Genomex can be considered mine.
I traded my life for Noah Kilmartin's son.
Jesse refused to let it happen, shouting at me from where he was being held not so far down the road at the other side of the small river. He screamed for me not to do it.
In a way, it was his attempt to preempt my death that brought it about.
He was released when I began walking forward. His hands were unbound, although the governor wasn't removed, and then he was given what looked to be a rather firm nudge in the back to encourage his own movement. He made it clear that he didn't like being traded.
When we met each other halfway across, he stopped walking and told me to turn back. Yet while I was alone, Mason was not. He had snipers trained on us both. This exchange would go his way.
Mason never said that he intended to kill me, but Jesse knew I wouldn't switch sides or help him in any way to destroy what we'd worked so hard to achieve and protect. Sooner or later, Mason would feel that he had no choice but to kill me.
I was shocked when Jesse essentially tackled me, throwing us both down toward the paved surface of the road while trying to ghost. The governors can't actually prevent the use of mutant abilities - they merely cause great pain when anybody attempts to do so. Most people would try very briefly once and then be wise enough to never attempt it again.
The phase was sloppy, but it almost succeeded. The bullet that was fired at Jesse passed straight through him. It almost went harmlessly through me as well.
Almost.
The near triumph is clear from the fact that there's no entry point, only the exit wound at my back.
I felt myself slam against the bridge before my body fully dispersed and Jesse and I both fell through it. The sensation of phasing was strange, and either intensely painful or that was the result of the bullet.
I'm not sure which one of us screamed as we returned to normal and hit the water below. Maybe we both did.
Jesse somehow managed to drag me onto the shore somewhere down river before passing out beside me, his own body still half-lying in the water. I suppose he more pushed me out than pulled for us to have ended up in this position.
I'm not entirely certain he's breathing. If I were still able to move, I'd check.
I can't believe he managed to phase with a governor implanted in the base of his neck. Perhaps he managed out of desperation. Perhaps it goes back to his misplaced trust that anything is possible. Perhaps it's just Jesse.
I somehow shift my hand, not far, maybe an inch. Then ever so slowly another, until my fingers are resting in his hair and I trail them down to check for a pulse. It's there, steady and strong, reassuring. Eventually, he'll rouse.
I wonder if he's already aware that when he wakes, I'll no longer be here.
They say that as you die, the pain goes away. You're led to believe that as death approaches you'll go numb. But shock has already set in, and still every breath I take is agony.
Due to the time of year, the water which soaks me is cool but not cold. Not cold enough to slow the bleeding.
I know it wouldn't be right for you to be required to watch me die, but damn it, Jesse, wake up. You need to wake so that you can run. Mason is relentless, and his men will be upon us soon. You can't phase again, so you'll need to flee.
Wake up, Jesse. Wake up and go home.
Not wearing my ring was brash and, quite frankly, arrogant. Jesse's is gone as well, so there's no way to signal for help. What a stupid fool I am.
Brennan can be headstrong, but he's capable of leading. If he were here, I know he'd make Jesse leave me. He'd make sure his team was safe.
And they are his team. Now.
Odd that it will be my most recent recruit who replaces me, but I suppose that's the reason I chose him. The others cannot do what I do. Jesse would make decisions with his heart rather than his head. He could never make the hard calls. Shalimar would be ruled by temper instead of rationale. And Emma's place has always been to support.
They function well as a team, balancing each other out. Now it will just be Brennan calling the shots instead of me.
My vision blurs. And it's not clouded with gray or red, or anything I would have expected, but charcoal blue. When you close your eyes, you presumably see the opposite color to that of what you were last looking at. Except I'm not certain what I last looked at. I doubt it was... whatever color is opposite charcoal blue. Coral pink?
And my eyes aren't closed.
Maybe I need to close them, and after that I'll slip away. So I let them close. Now it's dark, and I can't open them again despite trying.
I feel my heartbeat, pounding in my ears. Each beat is spaced further apart from the last.
I draw a shallow, shuddering breath, and the task of breathing is far more difficult than it has a right to be. That was probably my last breath.
So now what?
An afterlife? Nothing at all?
As a scientist, I've spent the majority of my life trying to disprove the existence of God. If he isn't scientific fact, then he must not be so. One cannot believe in science, believe in evolution, and believe in God.
Although, I've sometimes wondered if anyone truly believes or disbelieves. There is merely what we want to believe, what we tell people we believe, the stand we feel obligated to take. God cannot be seen, cannot be proven. Nor has his (or some would say her) existence ever viably been disproved.
We are told that science and God are mutually exclusive. I take little comfort in that.
I do not want for there to be a God. I prefer to think that I alone hold myself responsible for how I have lived my life. Overall, I like to think that I am a good man, although a man who has made many mistakes.
But do I believe in God?
I honestly do not know. And that frightens me.
I feel Jesse stir slightly, my hand still resting against his warm skin. It's good that he's waking. I can take some amount of peace in that.
I envy him.
All the mistakes you've made, Jesse, do it all over again. Live without regrets. Continue being you.
If I could go back, I'd take a chance with Christina. I'd take all the risks that common sense prevented.
The throbbing of my heartbeat stops with one final beat, too loud inside my head, but now I miss it. Everything else is gone, and the darkness becomes all consuming.
I'm not sure what to expect. As of now, there's no tunnel of brilliant celestial light, no deceased relatives or long gone friends come to greet me, no angels or demons, and neither pearly gates nor eternal flames.
There is only the dark.
And then the blackness breaks like dawn and lifts.
And after that...
After that there is...
Type of story: drabble
Season: set in the future sometime after season two
Warnings: character death
Disclaimer: I don't own MX. If I did, I'd be busy finding new and interesting ways of torturing Brennan, not sitting here writing fanfic. Needless to say, I have no money and I'm not making any from this, so you'd have to be a jerk to sue me. And that wasn't very polite, but do you have idea how many disclaimers I've written?!
Notes: I'm currently netless, but I've started having dreams where I'm online checking ff.net for updates, so I "borrowed" somebody else's computer and net connection. And then I discover that there's nothing new since the 9th! So naturally I decided to quickly write something and see if it would post (you know, just to appease my curiosity), hence this little fic. I normally don't post my drabbles. I only write them to get over writer's block, and then I trash them. But somebody had the nerve to comment that I only ever hurt Bren and Jesse while Adam gets left out. So this one is to prove that statement false. Oh, and this was written really fast and not beta-read, so read at your own risk.
-----
Adam's POV
-----
My dying was part of the plan all along.
However I choose to look at it, I knew. On some level - the part of my mind that returned the logical reasoning I refused to see - I was always aware this was the exchange I had agreed to. It could be no other way.
That knowledge was why I'd left my ring behind and gone without backup. The others wouldn't have allowed me to do this if I'd told them. They don't think that they're ready. And they aren't. In some ways, they never will be ready. The biggest changes in life are seldom prepared for accordingly. They happen based on snap decisions, often not your own, occurring in the blink of an eye, suddenly, unexpected. I wouldn't ask that they be ready. I simply have faith that they'll manage, that the mission will survive, without me.
They'll adapt to the change.
When I stepped onto that bridge (in hindsight a rather cliché meeting place), I think Jesse felt it as well. He understood that I came here to pay for his mistake.
My dear, naïve Jesse. He let himself knowingly fall in love with a GSAgent. Blinded by the trust that accompanies youth, he actually thought it could work. He thought that love truly could conquer all. But perhaps that isn't merely the innocence of youth. It's just Jesse's nature. Whether or not it was this girl who personally betrayed him, I'm still unclear. Yet he was set-up and captured the night after he left us.
The night he was supposed to propose.
After receiving Mason's demands, I couldn't turn my back on him. It was either my unconditional surrender, or Jesse would be killed.
I thought that when our fight switched from Gabriel Ashlocke back to Mason Eckhart that we'd gotten lucky. I thought we won against the greater of the two evils and were better off being left with the devil we know.
I was wrong.
But I do know Mason. I hate to admit we're a lot alike, he and I. Our lives have always been ruled by science. We also both share a darker side, obvious in how we approached our thirst for knowledge. And yet I do believe that when it comes right down to it, we are both men of our word.
If I hadn't offered my own defection in our personal war, my old colleague - my old friend - would have murdered one of the only four people in my life that I'm truly close to.
And Mason would have made certain Jesse's body was never found. The autopsy required by the police would reveal far too much. So instead he would simply disappear. Naturally he would have then be reported as missing. The story would be all over the local news. Misfortune always warrants broadcasting. The papers would headline it... for a while anyway.
Noah Kilmartin's son reported missing. Presumed kidnapped. Presumed dead.
But there would be no ransom demands, and there would be no body. Just the dangling mystery. In a week's time, the media would move on, and the public would forget. As happened with all things of this nature, attentions would change with the shifting of the wind. It would end as merely another sad story that had been gossiped about briefly. It would be dismissed with a shake of the head, perhaps a few sympathetic comments, but mainly people would view it with only the relief that it wasn't their child.
All Jesse had accomplished as a part of Mutant X, the person he'd become over the years... none of it would have been know. He'd have been just another statistic, another person who'd died far too young.
Jesse's death would only matter because he came from money, from "a good home."
Not even my own child. None of the children of Genomex can be considered mine.
I traded my life for Noah Kilmartin's son.
Jesse refused to let it happen, shouting at me from where he was being held not so far down the road at the other side of the small river. He screamed for me not to do it.
In a way, it was his attempt to preempt my death that brought it about.
He was released when I began walking forward. His hands were unbound, although the governor wasn't removed, and then he was given what looked to be a rather firm nudge in the back to encourage his own movement. He made it clear that he didn't like being traded.
When we met each other halfway across, he stopped walking and told me to turn back. Yet while I was alone, Mason was not. He had snipers trained on us both. This exchange would go his way.
Mason never said that he intended to kill me, but Jesse knew I wouldn't switch sides or help him in any way to destroy what we'd worked so hard to achieve and protect. Sooner or later, Mason would feel that he had no choice but to kill me.
I was shocked when Jesse essentially tackled me, throwing us both down toward the paved surface of the road while trying to ghost. The governors can't actually prevent the use of mutant abilities - they merely cause great pain when anybody attempts to do so. Most people would try very briefly once and then be wise enough to never attempt it again.
The phase was sloppy, but it almost succeeded. The bullet that was fired at Jesse passed straight through him. It almost went harmlessly through me as well.
Almost.
The near triumph is clear from the fact that there's no entry point, only the exit wound at my back.
I felt myself slam against the bridge before my body fully dispersed and Jesse and I both fell through it. The sensation of phasing was strange, and either intensely painful or that was the result of the bullet.
I'm not sure which one of us screamed as we returned to normal and hit the water below. Maybe we both did.
Jesse somehow managed to drag me onto the shore somewhere down river before passing out beside me, his own body still half-lying in the water. I suppose he more pushed me out than pulled for us to have ended up in this position.
I'm not entirely certain he's breathing. If I were still able to move, I'd check.
I can't believe he managed to phase with a governor implanted in the base of his neck. Perhaps he managed out of desperation. Perhaps it goes back to his misplaced trust that anything is possible. Perhaps it's just Jesse.
I somehow shift my hand, not far, maybe an inch. Then ever so slowly another, until my fingers are resting in his hair and I trail them down to check for a pulse. It's there, steady and strong, reassuring. Eventually, he'll rouse.
I wonder if he's already aware that when he wakes, I'll no longer be here.
They say that as you die, the pain goes away. You're led to believe that as death approaches you'll go numb. But shock has already set in, and still every breath I take is agony.
Due to the time of year, the water which soaks me is cool but not cold. Not cold enough to slow the bleeding.
I know it wouldn't be right for you to be required to watch me die, but damn it, Jesse, wake up. You need to wake so that you can run. Mason is relentless, and his men will be upon us soon. You can't phase again, so you'll need to flee.
Wake up, Jesse. Wake up and go home.
Not wearing my ring was brash and, quite frankly, arrogant. Jesse's is gone as well, so there's no way to signal for help. What a stupid fool I am.
Brennan can be headstrong, but he's capable of leading. If he were here, I know he'd make Jesse leave me. He'd make sure his team was safe.
And they are his team. Now.
Odd that it will be my most recent recruit who replaces me, but I suppose that's the reason I chose him. The others cannot do what I do. Jesse would make decisions with his heart rather than his head. He could never make the hard calls. Shalimar would be ruled by temper instead of rationale. And Emma's place has always been to support.
They function well as a team, balancing each other out. Now it will just be Brennan calling the shots instead of me.
My vision blurs. And it's not clouded with gray or red, or anything I would have expected, but charcoal blue. When you close your eyes, you presumably see the opposite color to that of what you were last looking at. Except I'm not certain what I last looked at. I doubt it was... whatever color is opposite charcoal blue. Coral pink?
And my eyes aren't closed.
Maybe I need to close them, and after that I'll slip away. So I let them close. Now it's dark, and I can't open them again despite trying.
I feel my heartbeat, pounding in my ears. Each beat is spaced further apart from the last.
I draw a shallow, shuddering breath, and the task of breathing is far more difficult than it has a right to be. That was probably my last breath.
So now what?
An afterlife? Nothing at all?
As a scientist, I've spent the majority of my life trying to disprove the existence of God. If he isn't scientific fact, then he must not be so. One cannot believe in science, believe in evolution, and believe in God.
Although, I've sometimes wondered if anyone truly believes or disbelieves. There is merely what we want to believe, what we tell people we believe, the stand we feel obligated to take. God cannot be seen, cannot be proven. Nor has his (or some would say her) existence ever viably been disproved.
We are told that science and God are mutually exclusive. I take little comfort in that.
I do not want for there to be a God. I prefer to think that I alone hold myself responsible for how I have lived my life. Overall, I like to think that I am a good man, although a man who has made many mistakes.
But do I believe in God?
I honestly do not know. And that frightens me.
I feel Jesse stir slightly, my hand still resting against his warm skin. It's good that he's waking. I can take some amount of peace in that.
I envy him.
All the mistakes you've made, Jesse, do it all over again. Live without regrets. Continue being you.
If I could go back, I'd take a chance with Christina. I'd take all the risks that common sense prevented.
The throbbing of my heartbeat stops with one final beat, too loud inside my head, but now I miss it. Everything else is gone, and the darkness becomes all consuming.
I'm not sure what to expect. As of now, there's no tunnel of brilliant celestial light, no deceased relatives or long gone friends come to greet me, no angels or demons, and neither pearly gates nor eternal flames.
There is only the dark.
And then the blackness breaks like dawn and lifts.
And after that...
After that there is...