Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, places, events, yada yada yada. Don't sue me; I'm poor and I'm not making any money off of this.
Four Ways X2 Could Have Ended (and One Way It Did)
written 7/23/08
1: Scott
He's glad Jean survived. He really is. When he remembers that awful feeling at the dam, when he realized that she was outside, there was nothing worse. So he's really happy to have her back.
He doesn't own her, though, and he's OK with that. When she chose to go sleep with Logan, that was fine with him. She got bored of it fairly fast, and came back to him. He was her possession; she couldn't lose him.
He finishes counting to 100, and figures she's far enough away and focused on other things now, enough to get away with thoughts. Slowly, he lets himself remember that day.
She had patched together the jet, and held off the water long enough to rejoin them inside. She was glowing, like an angel. "I'm Phoenix," she corrected him, smiling in a way that both turned him on and creeped the hell out of him.
The Professor decided they should head to Washington to settle things with the President. He then had to talk her out of disintegrating the President and his staff. "The government is useful for keeping the country in order, but they don't need to know about us," he suggested, and she wiped their memories of Stryker and the "mutant terrorists." No one in Washington even mentions mutant problems these days.
She still teaches Biology to the upper-division students. It scared them half to death at first, but they have gotten used to it. They learned to cram, and it got easier when the Professor reminded her that she was the smartest one, of course, and so they couldn't be expected to keep up with her. She agreed with him, and now she reminds them every day how inferior they are. Less mature students would have fought back or ran away, but these kids know the cost of that. Scott wishes they didn't have to.
Most of the time she does research, though. She got bored of voluntary samples within the first month, and told the Professor she wanted some real humans to practice on. He told her he would find her some with Cerebro. Once a week, a homeless person shows up on the doorstep. All the kids have learned to recognize them, not just for the lack of hygiene, but for the blank stare that hints at mind control. They promptly show them to the laboratory and flee back upstairs as quickly as possible. No one wants to know what happens to them.
She accidentally broke Jubilee's arm and Artie's spine once, early on. Scott can't remember why she was mad, but he remembers the earthquake that resulted, and the screams from the kids when they fell wrong. Jean gained control of the Phoenix personality long enough to see what she had done. She hasn't been out of a corner in her mind since. Jubilee's arm healed up fine. Artie wheels himself around aimlessly, and skips classes most of the time. The other teachers say nothing.
She hasn't wanted to sleep with anyone since Logan, and he's glad. He wanted to murder them both the next morning, but he knew it wasn't Logan's fault. The night after she lost interest and went back to Scott, Logan vanished, taking Rogue with him. Scott wasn't surprised.
The Professor meets with Scott secretly during the day. He teaches Scott how to hide his thoughts securely behind an invisible wall. If she had any clue they were hiding anything, the walls would be torn from their minds. He keeps it up whenever she's around, and even most of the time when she's not. He doesn't want to think about the way things are. He's afraid one day he will try to kill her himself. The Professor has already suggested they plot that, but Scott can't bring himself to do it, as much as he wants to. Someday, he promises the older man.
He senses the bare beginnings of her awareness drawing nearer, and smoothly slides the wall over, covering it with thoughts of his love for her. She soaks it up and he smiles. He's happy. Really, he is.
2: Rogue
She knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time. Even Mystique, as Senator Kelly, couldn't prevent it. When they announce the Mutant Registration Act on the TVs in the den, she starts coming up with possible plans. She has two men in her head who hate being locked up, and they're giving her almost more advice than she can listen to at once. Bobby isn't with her. Logan vanishes that afternoon on Scott's bike, and no one knows why.
That evening the Professor gathers all the students together, from the youngest to the oldest. He gives them the options: stay in the U.S. and register, run to Canada or Scotland (and hope the Act doesn't follow), or turn outlaw. Bobby holds Kitty's hand, skin to skin. She doesn't blame him. She looks down at her hands, encased in soft gloves, and thinks hard.
No one chooses to register, and the Professor uses Cerebro to wipe them out of as many memories as possible. A few of the kids are taken out of the school by their parents. Kitty's parents get her a passport, and she prepares to apply for naturalization to become a Canadian citizen. She plans to attend a college there; the Professor graduated the oldest students with some paperwork sleight-of-hand. Bobby's parents don't contact him at all. The Professor pulls strings to get him a passport anyway. Rogue waves him goodbye; he waves back, then gets in the car with Kitty. Theresa's father takes her and several of her friends to Scotland. Dani and John Proudstar head back to their reservations. They figure they can keep their heads low. The government doesn't pay much attention to a bunch of poor Indians, and they figure for once, it can work in their favor. The school begins to feel very empty. Rogue can't decide where to go. She wonders where Logan is.
Scott and Storm take the rest of the children to Scotland in the Blackbird, flying several trips to get everything over. They know better than to try to fly commercially now. Rogue spends her time in private lessons with the Professor. She wants control, now more than ever.
The political rumblings become more sinister, with talk of mutant zones and human protection laws. The Professor asks Rogue if she knows where she wants to go now. She is about to answer him when she hears the motorcycle return. She grins as if the Act was never passed. This is what she's been waiting for, she realizes.
Logan says he has a cabin in the Rockies, and wants Rogue to go with him. The Professor doesn't hesitate to say yes, and wishes her the best. She thanks him and packs her things. She bids him goodbye with a kiss to his cheek and shares his mental delight. What will you do? she asks him. He tells her he has to save as many as he can. She smiles at him sadly as she leaves. She doesn't let herself think about what will happen to him.
Logan puts her stuff in the back of an old pickup truck the Professor kept around for landscaping purposes, and she's ready to go. She isn't sure what the future will hold, but she's ready to face it.
3: Kitty
She isn't sure what has happened. She meets up with the other kids in the woods that awful night. They run to the safe house in the nearby neighborhood. The Professor keeps it in Hank's name for cases like this, and she calls him as soon as they get there. She spends the night holding one of the little girls (who clings to Kitty as if her life depends on it), and watches for Theresa to wake up. Piotr sits beside her and cradles Jones in his arms. No one sleeps much.
The next day, they hold each other's hands when the mysterious pain waves hit, and console Hank when blue fur sprouts all over his skin. Then they wait for a phone call that never comes.
Hank makes a few calls of his own and determines that no one made it out alive. The house alternates between sounds of crying and dead silence. Kitty isn't sure which is worse.
Hank takes an extended leave of absence from his job to sort it all out. He wrangles an audience with the President, who agrees to forget about the school in exchange for as much info as possible about Magneto and Mystique. Hank gives it to him. Kitty doesn't trust the President, and figures out how to hack into the government databases and erase any mention of the school.
The children clean up the glass and wood splinters at the mansion enough to be able to pack their things. Hank meets with the families still willing to acknowledge their children. Most agree to take another child to live with them. Hank fixes all the adoption papers for them. In between meetings, he sits in the Professor's study with his head bowed. No one wants to disturb him.
Kitty's mom volunteers to take three. Kitty starts to cry again when she realizes none of her closest friends are there to take. Theresa's dad comes to pick her up (he takes Artie with them to Scotland), and Dani heads back to the rez (she doesn't take anyone). Kitty chooses three younger girls who have followed her around listlessly for the past week.
She hugs Piotr goodbye, and doesn't want to let go. He promises to keep in touch. When she gets a letter, she assumes it's him, till she sees John's handwriting. She nearly faints. He's with Magneto, and doesn't leave a return address. He says he's sorry, but she doesn't know why. Every letter she receives after that, she looks at the handwriting on the front, but it's always Piotr. She isn't sure which she wants more.
She dreams every night. It's always the same thing: she lets herself be kidnapped, then uses her powers to save all of them. Every morning, she wakes up happy for a split second, till she remembers.
4: Charles
He's the only one left. He's pretty sure of that now; it's been several weeks. He felt the others die, he thinks. He can't remember--Jason's control was very tight. He isn't sure what happened to Erik, though; the helmet should have kept him alive.
Even now, Stryker has him search periodically for more mutants. Most of them are unborn babies; their deaths are easy to explain away. Doctors aren't sure why miscarriage rates have gone up, but their first ideas have more to do with environmental pollution than mutants, so the cases evade suspicion.
Stryker's very good at making sure the neural inhibitor keeps him under lock and key, except when Jason is there to control him. Charles doesn't know how to feel about that; he doesn't think he could stop himself from making Stryker kill himself, should he ever be free of their control.
He doesn't hear much news, thanks to Jason. He has heard whispers, though, that the attack ended up being a worldwide catastrophe. Some have whispered that the government wants this base shut back down. He wonders what the President thinks of Stryker's plans now.
The worst part of it, he thinks, is that he can't even take his own life. Stryker keeps his hands strapped down, and force feeds him if he won't eat. He wishes he had telekinesis; he wonders if he would be able to stop his own heart or if the neural inhibitor would prevent that.
He hears explosions one day. Gunshots ring in the corridor. He waits for them to reach him and kill him, till he hears the sound of creaking metal. He isn't sure whether he'll receive death or life. He wonders if it matters.
The door bursts open and Erik stands before him, wearing the helmet. Stryker and his son are dead now, he tells Charles. He gently removes the straps and the inhibitor, and pulls the wheelchair along behind him with a beckoning finger.
Please kill me, old friend, Charles begs him. Erik turns and looks at him sadly. We have work to do, he says.
Charles nods his head slowly. What shall we do first? he asks, and doesn't blink when Erik tells him.
5: Ororo
She doesn't miss Jean that badly, she tells herself. They weren't that close of friends, more like coworkers than anything else. Jean was high society; Ororo came from the streets of Cairo. Jean could always pass for normal; Ororo stood out like hail on a sunny day.
She's more worried about Scott. He hardly emerges from his room. She's had to cover his classes as well as her own. The Professor brings in a new teacher for Biology. He's nothing like Jean.
Several of the smaller kids find her at nights and crawl into her bed. She cuddles them until they can fall asleep, then paces the floor. She catches a few hours of sleep in a chair by the window. She doesn't seem to need very much these days; it doesn't make a difference in getting her through the day.
The Professor asks if she wants to talk sometime. She never does. What's there to talk about? Besides, she has lesson plans and grading to do. She doesn't have time to talk with him.
She spends what free time she has in the garden, restoring every inch of it till it looks like it did before the soldiers came. She thinks it should make her feel better than it does. She walks inside when it starts raining again.
She enters the TV room just when it's on the weather forecast. They talk about the unusual three-week storm, and try to figure it out. She turns away. It isn't her, she thinks. She doesn't miss Jean that much, so it isn't her.
When the Professor tries to talk to her again, she buries herself in a Danger Room routine. She programs it to show Stryker as the enemy, and kills him over and over. Logan mans the control room (it isn't safe to use it alone); he watches but says nothing. When she finishes, she breaks down crying and can't stop. She doesn't know why.