A/N: I just saw the new X-Men movie, and I was really astounded that Scott was dying so early in the movie, never getting one single nice scene with Jean. However, I liked the very last scene, with the "graves" in the garden. So, voilá, here it is, finished one and a half hours after leaving the cinema.
Disclaimer: Yadda, yadda, yadda. You know the drill. But if anyone owns Scott and wants to sell him, write a mail!
When All is Said and Done
A black bird was circling in the heights, a single dark spot in an ocean of pale blue. It was far away, hardly visible, and still Logan's eyes were following it as it was making its way toward the horizon. He was watching the animal, imagining the fluttering wings, the restless movements of muscles underneath black feathers. Almost he envied the bird, envied it for its freedom to roam about all lands, disconnected from earth and people.
His eyes were still following its traces when the bird had long vanished beyond the wide skies.
It was quiet in the gardens, quiet about the terrace that overlooked it, and quiet was Logan's heart. He was not thinking, not consciously at least. His gaze remained trained on the spot the bird had become lost in the blue vastnesses already minutes ago. There was nothing to see, but Logan preferred seeing nothing to seeing the garden beneath him. He did not want to look at it, no, he did not.
And yet, what would he see when he lowered his gaze, he asked himself. No, he was not even thinking, so it was impossible to be thinking about the garden.
Further minutes passed, and almost imperceptibly the sun had wandered, bringing evening a few moments closer. Logan smiled. A little while, and then he would go inside, eat dinner with the kids and Ororo, watch the hours passing by on the clock on the wall next to the sofa, where he had been sitting some months ago, thinking about whom he did not allow himself to think about now.
The smile faded, and Logan knew that he would not be able to keep himself from looking at the garden for much longer. Everything was still so near, and yet so far away. One short week, seven long days, unbelievably many 168 hours, since he had fulfilled the terrible wish of the woman whose wishes he had never been able to leave unfulfilled.
Once, in a dark night in a dark time, she had told him of her wishes. She had said three words, but not the three words that he had been longing to hear. She said, I love him. Him instead of you, Scott instead of Logan, Cyclops instead of Wolverine, the tame instead of the untamed. And so he had turned from her, and had not believed her then, or had not wanted to believe her. How could she possibly love him?
But then she had died, and Scott had withered and changed. Logan himself had changed, too. Because he saw Scott now, defeated and hopeless and quiet, dreaming only nightmares. Breaking a little more each day. And when he was as broken as he would ever be, he became cynical and distant, not caring about himself or anything else or anyone else.
Scott was no longer Scott. He was a shadow, and sometimes Logan had thought that only the stubble around his chin and the dark clothes were still preventing him from fading, from becoming a ghost haunting the mansion. Sometimes Scott was even strolling the wide halls during the nights, listening to a voice no one but he was able to hear.
Scott had never talked to anyone. His pain had been so tangible that you could almost feel it when standing beside him, but there was no one to dry his tears because only Jean could have.
Logan could not remember the last words he ever said to him, something about a duty unfulfilled, and about not caring about the others. He wished he could change that now. But it was said and done, and Scott was certainly past caring now. Once he had said that he did not believe in a life after death. Logan had nodded then, no, he did not either, he had said.
Now, though, he hoped he had wrong. That there was more to it than eternal nothingness.
He sighed. He still did not want to, but he knew he had to. It was no good denying it, because there was nothing to deny. He was not able to wish away the two tombstones in the garden, because he was the practical one and because he had killed the woman whose name was engraved on the left one, the one close to the small hedge that lent tranquility to the final resting place of Charles X Xavier, Scott Summers and Jean Grey.
He had killed her to give her her final and deserved peace. She had been suffering long enough. The Phoenix had risen and had destroyed. And Scott, the love of her life, had been her first victim. His body had never been found.
Jean's body was the only one that was buried beneath the green grass of the garden. Charles had been blasted to pieces, and Scott, well…
Logan did not want to imagine the last moments of Scott's life. How had it felt to be dying at the hands of the one who had been meant to become your wife? Logan simply hoped that it had gone fast, that Scott had never been able to realize what was happening.
He did not know it, and anyway he hoped that they were now treading the paths of eternity as he had once seen them treading the hidden path beyond the mansion, holding hands.
They both deserved to be happy, and every student at the school had felt the need to bury them side by side. Maybe there was something else beside eternal nothingness.
A sad smile hushed across Logan's face. The blue skies still beckoned him to keep his gaze there, yet he tore his eyes away.
The three tombstones were bright in the light of the sun, the flame in front of Charles' flickering in the uplifting wind. Jean and Scott's were unadorned, almost plain. Only their names were inscribed, but nothing else was needed.
Their long fight was done, and Logan hoped it had ended well. He had lost, but he was able to live with that. Scott and Jean had lost, too, but they had lost almost everything.
Resting side by side was everything that they still had.
And with that thought, Logan turned and went in, the sinking sun in his back. Ororo was waiting, and Bobby, and Marie, and all the others. For him, there was still something to live for. Jean and Scott had sacrificed everything.
A/N: I hope you liked it. It was my first X-Men story, and it didn't turn out quite as I wanted it to, but anyway, please tell me what you think! Reviews are really greatly appreciated!