Title: The Dream
Fandom: X-Men
Characters: Jean, Sara, Annie
Prompt: Orange (Number 12)
Word Count: 1,708
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Vague mentions to the Phalanx, set during reunification

Jean stirred, moving her ears as the breeze tickling it with a sound vaguely familiar. Her eyes opened slowly, her lips mumbling Scott's name. She pushed up looking around off set. She was lying at the top of a walkway path that looked back seemed to wind up a mountain. The area around her was desolate, even for the life that radiate from it.

Pushing herself up to a sitting position, she coughed clearing her lungs of the dry air, and then brushed her hands off, looking around, straining for anything even remotely familiar. As near as she could tell she was in the middle of nowhere. She looked towards the very top of the trail, to a place she couldn't yet see except to know it leveled off there, like a mesa. That tune, it was there again, dancing on the wind. It sound familiar?

What was it? Long, full melody, with playfully flitting notes.

Jean picked herself up and started to walk up the path further, hoping she was right in think the sound came in the direction she walked. Her feet moved slowly, placed deliberately even though, till she reached the top and squinted at the person, the first person she'd seen-

-In weeks?

The figure was away from her, sitting Indian style it appeared by the edge of a cliff. Female, from it's contours and the long brown hair that waved behind her in the winds, while a flute peeked out to one side, which produced a beautiful melody.

Raising a hand to her lips, Jean's eyes blinked to give the image time to fade. She knew it too well, if she never knew this place to a memory she could recall it from.

The name was an incredulously faint whisper, too quite to be heard across the space that separated the two women. "Sara?"

The music silenced abruptly, a jarring feeling going through her stomach at the stop, and the flute came down from the face in the movement. The head swiveled to look over the left shoulder to her, and Jean's breath caught in her throat. The face had a gentle smile, and deep eyes, of a face so familiar through her past.

"What kept you so long, Jeanie Bean?"

Jean's body shifted on the Med. Lab bed, a small confused sound emitting from her. Her face was calming, but her heart rate rose a bit more than it regularly did. Her lips parted and she whispered almost like a child, telling a secret, a deep affectionate joy.

"Sara…"

Emerald eyes stared at blue grey ones cloaked in bright reddish brown hair for long moment. Devilish touch to her eyes, swirled with wisdom, the right puckered dimple that only showed when she smiled. But…could it be? Was it real?

"Don't tell me you're getting lost in your head again. Remember I told you, it's honestly only so big." The phantom said with a loving tease holding her hands and making a small box like shape with them with intention to a head.

"You-" Jean faltered it sound like an accusation cloaked in surprised curiosity and childish gaiety. "-were waiting for me?"

"Of course I was, silly." Sara was moving now, leaving the flute by the edge of the cliff. Her movements were gracefully, more graceful that any human she could remember having laid eyes to. And her -dress?- outfit, played on the winds, like it's white cloth was part of it, and simply formed to her like air. Her steps towards Jean were silent, though her face seemed warm as she reached out to tap the top of the fiery haired woman with green eyes like she was a ten-year-old.

"What other sister would I have to wait on?"

"I-ah," Jean stopped a moment, scrunching her face in at the tap, and smiled, still having an odd queasy feeling inside. "Just me I guess."

"Good. Now that we have those things solved, Jeanie Bean, it appears to me like you've gotten your self into a little conundrum, again."

"I have?" She asked with a hesitance to her soft, confused voice.

"There is a fire raging, Jean."

Sara walked behind her, and turned her around to face out in a single direction, though she couldn't tell at all what the cardinal directions were here. Her hands on her younger sisters' shoulder, she caused her to look out at a part of this small dry land she hadn't seen yet. There was a lush land, untouched by the unmerciful heat were they stood, buffered by a gentle pink bubble.

Like her shield.

But inside in its center a ring of fire was consuming the lush green area, leaving the dessert waste land of the rest of this small world in it's wake. "You have to stop it."

"I...I can't." Jean felt the tug inside her as she looked the lush green forest and the brilliant fire. " I don't know how to."

"Are you sure, Jean?" Another voice piped. A small one, part squeaky, but all exuberance.

Jean turned, Sara's hand still on her shoulder, and her mouth simply fell open, as she looked at the person who had appeared and spoken to her.

Her body shifted restlessly on the bed, a small moan of surprise and pain emitting as soft as a whisper, like she still might be afraid to bother anyone, her eyes clenched shut as her fist also clenched unconsciously.

Jean blinked looked at the child who'd spoken. Pictures, yes, and memories like they were yesterday, yes, but looking like she was standing there living and breathing, no. No, never.

"Don't tell me you're scared, Jeanie. You weren't never scared of nothing. Not the boys down the street, or the jump to the creek tire," The little blonde said with a definite nod as she tossed something at her suddenly. Her voice was complete confidence, like she'd been reciting something of an idol….or perhaps a very close friend.

She almost ducked, but a hand came out, unexpected –her own?- and caught it. She looked down at it in her hand. A Frisbee. Red, with the fading and peeling rainbow circle sticker around it. She'd never seen it again after that day, but she was sure it was the exact same one.

A flash took her mind. The sounds of laughter carried by a summer day. The squeal of the cars tires. Mother always said it was a tight turn and no one could see the road until they'd fully turned into it. But you didn't remember. You were having too much fun.

`I missed!'

`Try again, Carrot Top! Higher and Further this time!'

`Okay. Ready? Set? Here I go!"

…

`Annie? Annie, speak to me, pleas-`

..

And the world went black with a rush of confusion and pain.

"Annie."

The little girl laughed with childish glee, it setting a smile on her cherub like face, as she reached up to play with the tale end of the her pony tale.

"Course. Jean." She replied with a sweet sarcasm, affectionately.

She couldn't bring herself to say anything. It was all a dream. It had to be. Both Sara and Annie were dead. Tragic accidents, but dead. Gone, and buried, by time, whether they were never forgotten. They were dead

"So are you gonna fix it?"

Emeralds eyes, framed under fiery hair and pale skin, blinked, confused, as if she missed the words, or somehow forgotten what they were for. "What?"

"The fire, scatter brain." Annie smiled. "You have to fix the fire."

"I—" Jean looked back over her shoulder toward the bubble in the middle of the barren area. A shudder ran through her as her eyes followed the circle of flames and she felt Sara's hand squeeze her shoulder lightly. "I can't. I don't even know what it is."

"Destiny." The little girl said simply. As if it were that simple.

"I don't know what yo-" Jean looked back at her, and her eyes widened. It was still Annie, but the sight also made her stomach turn. On the finger of her right hand which she turned, this way and that was a flickering flame she was watching dance across her fingers, though it didn't seen to burn her.

All the words that had been clogging her throat fled her. Her stomach coiled, making her feel ill, her palms felt sweaty and her heart rate increased.

The little girl watched the sparkle of fire light dance on her fingers, with an awe and mystery, like it was a new game. "You know, it's not always something you have to run from, or fight to keep from-"

"No."

The face that looked up at her suddenly wasn't Annie. The eyes gleamed like stars. It seemed less than a second but suddenly that person who wasn't Annie, was as tall as her and as bright, no brighter, than any light she'd ever seen, starting to marvel that of a star or sun, and though she tried to look away, her eyes seemed not to listen.

"Sometimes," the voice was odd. Empty, and yet full. Compassionate, yet lifeless. "You have to surrender to over come, Jean."

The hand of bright light, held out the flickering flame that still danced on the finger tips. Jean stared at it silently, overcome by some curiosity, till the being walked closer. She took steps back. Somewhere around them suddenly the silence and the breeze was filled with screams of terror. She took steps back further and further though her eyes couldn't leave the thing standing on the edge of the mesa.

"NO!"

"No!" Jean shot up from the medical bed, and sagged from a wince of pain. Her chest heaved and she looked around the room. It was still crowded.

It was just a dream. It was just a dream. It was just a dream.

Her lungs were trying to gulp down air faster than they could, and her body shook lightly. She swallowed hard and put her hands down on the bed to support her. She continued to try to calm her body down whispering very faintly, as she wrapped her arms around her chest tightly. "..just a dream."