Remembering the Ashes
A/N: Haven't written a fic in a LONG time, and after watching Days of Future Past, I thought now would be a great time to get back in the game. This story is inspired by the final scene of the movie. It's about Logan and Jean coming to terms with what happened to her in the original timeline, and how they are to move forward with that knowledge.
Westchester, New York
2023
Jean Grey was walking down the grand staircase of the Xavier School for the Gifted, heading to her morning class with the psychic students, when she saw a familiar figure lurking near the foot of the staircase, staring at her.
"Hi Logan", she said, with a brief smile.
"Hullo Jean", Logan replied, in a strange voice.
She paused for a moment, unsure how to proceed. "Got a morning class?" she asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.
"Danger Room session", Logan replied hastily, as though he'd suddenly decided this conversation wasn't the best idea.
"Well, guess I'd better get going", Jean said, as she briskly walked passed Logan. Logan stared after her receding back, as though he was seeing something unreal, but then shook himself out of his stupor and made his way down the hall to the concealed elevator that led to the lower level.
As the morning progressed, Jean couldn't but help think back to that awkward encounter, and the half-dozen others like it she'd had with Logan the past few weeks. She was supposed to be teaching her students focus, but she couldn't bring herself to focus on the task at hand, to avoid distraction.
Logan's behaviour over the past few weeks had been strange at best. She had no way of knowing why. Well, naturally, being a telepath, she did technically have a way, but she wasn't in the habit of spying on the minds of close friends and team-mates.
She didn't really know what had changed, or why. It had started, as far as she could tell, one morning when Logan seemed shocked by her very presence. "You're here!" he had said, in an unmistakable tone of surprise. "Where else would I be?"she'd shrugged, wondering what had gotten into him.
And then he'd tried to touch her, before Scott (ever playing the 'jealous husband'!) stopped him. And she couldn't but help notice that Logan seemed genuinely surprised, even pleased, to see Scott too.
Since then, every time they'd crossed each other's paths in the Mansion, Logan had acted strange around her. He looked at her as though he could scarcely believe she was there. As though he were looking at a ghost. He found it difficult to even exchange pleasantries with her.
And she had no idea why.
She supposed it could have been the feelings she knew he'd always had for her, almost since the day they'd met. But Logan had years ago come to an unspoken understanding with her regarding those feelings. Yes, she knew he still loved her, but as a friend and fellow X-man. He'd long ago accepted the fact that she belonged with Scott.
Which was why his strange behaviour with her was...jarring, to say the least.
Though, now that she thought about it, it wasn't just with her. A lot of people in the Mansion seemed to have noticed Logan's strange behaviour. How he wandered about the Mansion, looking dazed. How he wandered the gardens, staring at the skies...as though expecting trouble any minute.
And then there was the fact that every other evening, he conferred with the Professor in his office for hours, sometimes joined by Hank.
Life was seldom 'normal' for mutants, and certainly not for the X-men...but Jean somehow felt that unless she got to the bottom of Logan's strange behaviour, one way or the other, it would continue to distract her ceaselessly.
And distraction could well be disastrous for a psychic, especially one as powerful as her...
o o o
"I don't need to be psychic to see that something's bothering you, Jean", Professor Xavier said gently.
"You've noticed", Jean said softly, even as she telekinetically poured out cups of Earl Grey tea for both her and the Professor. It was after hours and they were both seated in the latter's study. Jean had just finished reporting on the progress of her psychic students when Charles had decided to take the bull by the horns.
"I would be lying if I said I didn't have an inkling as to what it was, but humour me all the same", he said in the sage-like manner which had always put Jean at her ease.
"Well it's...Logan", Jean said. "He's been acting...strange...lately. Especially around me".
Charles didn't seem surprised. He simply nodded. "Yes...I'd anticipated you'd come to me about this sooner or later".
"So you know what's going on?" she asked. "You and Hank?"
"Yes", Charles sighed. "I apologize for keeping you in the dark so far, but I felt...well, I've spent the last few weeks debating the pros and cons of letting you all know about this. The truth is that it is somewhat...disturbing".
"Is something wrong with Logan?" Jean asked, instantly concerned.
"No, not in the least. Not physically, at least", Charles reassured her.
"His mind then?" Jean asked.
"Yes...but not in the way you'd think. And certainly no cause for alarm...not anymore", he replied.
"The truth is Jean that Logan seems different because...he is a different man in some senses now", he added.
"I'm not sure I understand", Jean said.
"I'm not sure how to make you understand this simply but I'll try nonetheless" Charles replied, and continued, "The Logan you've seen the last several weeks...isn't exactly the Logan we all know. His mind...is the mind of another Logan. A Logan from a...divergent timeline".
"Divergent timeline!" Jean exclaimed.
"Time travel is possible Jean. At least, mentally, if not physically. In other world, another reality...Kitty discovered her secondary mutation was the ability to project the consciousness of an individual back in time", Charles explained. "She sent Logan back in time to 1973 to make some very necessary changes to the past. When she pulled him back to the present...her world, her timeline, ended...and was replaced by ours".
"So , you mean, the history we know is the product of...time travel?" Jean asked, sounding incredulous, trying to process what she'd just heard.
"Yes, Jean. And I can assure you, far better than the history Logan remembers", Charles said.
For the next half-hour, he told her everything. All about that day in 1973 when he and Hank were visited by a man who claimed to be from the future...and everything that had happened after that. He told her about the Sentinels, and how they'd nearly slaughtered mutant-kind into extinction. He told her about how he'd known about her for years before they'd met...anticipated meeting her, recruiting her, training her.
"For fifty years I've lived knowing about the future...with no one but Hank to confide in. And now, Logan. I've been working with him the last few weeks...helping him adjust to his...new...surroundings. Helping him try to recover the memories of his...alternate self", he concluded.
Jean sat there, stunned. In all her years in the X-men, she'd seen and heard a lot of unbelievable things. But nothing remotely like this...
Suddenly, her mind flew back to the reason why she'd brought the topic up in the first place. And what she thought about chilled her to her very core...
"I know what you're thinking Jean", the Professor said. "And...if you want the answer I think it's best if you look into Logan's mind...see it for yourself." He paused. "But I warn you...the truth...is far from pleasant."
"With everything you've told me...I think I'll go crazy if I know for sure", Jean said.
"You're right...it wouldn't do for you to go...crazy", Charles replied with a smile, though Jean could not but help notice a note of sudden seriousness in his voice as he said that.
o o o
It was early the next morning.
Logan sat up suddenly in his bed as he sensed the door to his room open. His instinctively clenched his fists, preparing to unsheathe his claws, only to notice that it was none other than Jean who had entered his room.
"I'm sorry I startled you", Jean said, as she moved towards the bed, telekinetically locking the door behind her.
Logan sat on the bed, looking stunned at her approach. She couldn't but help sense his thoughts at that moment. A bizarre, almost incomprehensible mixture of lust, longing, anxiety and...Yes, there was clearly a hint of disbelief. And not just from the fact that she was in his bedroom.
"Relax Logan", she said as she sat down on the bed next to him. Then with a smirk she said "This isn't what you think".
It occurred to her, looking at his somewhat confused face, that he didn't really know what kind of relationship they shared in this...reality. It was strange to even think about this not being the only 'reality'...
She hesitated, unsure how to proceed. She finally decided to come straight to the point.
"Logan...I...I know", she said to him softly. "The Professor told me everything".
"Oh", he said looking at her. Again, she could sense his thoughts. This time it was a mix of relief (for not having to keep this secret from her any longer?) and anxiety (for what else he might have to burden her with over the course of this conversation?)
"I've been noticing something...different...about you the last few weeks. I needed to know, and Charles told me", she explained.
Taking a deep breath, she added, "And now, I need to know something. Something I...I really can't ask. I don't know how to".
Logan nodded, seemingly understanding what she wanted. "You want to read my mind, Jean...you can do it. But...I'm not sure it's such a great idea".
Jean smiled. "Trust me Logan...I'm no stranger to seeing...disturbing things...in your mind".
"You've never seen anything like this though, Jean. Believe me", Logan said, grabbing her hand and stroking it gently, without giving much thought to what she was doing.
"Well, there's a first time for everything", Jean said, as she placed her hands on Logan's temples and looked into his eyes.
"Go ahead Jean...if that's what you want", he said, still reluctant, but not particularly desperate to stop her. She sensed that deep down inside, he wanted to relieve himself of the burden he'd been carrying...he wanted her to know the truth, however terrible it was.
So she closed her eyes and immersed herself, as she had so often before, in the mind of the Wolverine.
When she was in, the paradoxical mixture of familiarity and strangeness really struck her. This was a mind she both knew and didn't. It was like visiting a familiar house but getting lost inside because the interiors had been almost completely re-arranged.
The most unfamiliar of course were the visions of carnage and destruction. And the Sentinels...stalking the apocalyptic landscape in search of mutant prey. And the graves. So many people she knew and didn't know. Hank...Warren...Kurt...God knows how many others...she almost screamed to herself. She was lost in a torrent of violence and death, and desperately needed something to grasp onto.
So she grasped onto herself. Herself as Logan now remembered her.
And the memories splashed across the mindscape...
"Where's your room?" he asked.
"Down the hall, with Scott", she replied.
"Is that your gift...putting up with that guy" he smirked.
The scene shifted and they were in the woods, somewhere outside the Mansion.
"Girls flirt with the dangerous guy Logan...they don't take him home. They marry the good guy!" she said.
"I can be the good guy", he said, in false earnestness.
"Logan...the good guy sticks around", she replied.
Jean smiled to herself, or at least she would have if she wasn't in astral form. She'd had a variation of this conversation several times with Logan in the early years they'd known each other.
The scene changed again...they were in the jet. Except, she wasn't there...at least not physically.
They were all staring at the Professor's possessed form. Scott was leaning over her.
"Jean...don't do this!" Scott pleaded, almost in tears.
"Goodbye", she said, through the Professor.
A wave of unimaginable pain washed over her for several minutes before she realized it wasn't her pain, or even the pain of her divergent self. It was the pain Logan imagined she'd felt the moment the mass of water collapsed over her, subsuming her being completely.
So that was how it all ended, Jean thought to herself. And yet she sensed there was...more. Something more which she felt Logan's sub-consciousness actively trying to resist her probing. But she was too skilled a telepath to let that stop her...
She was in the med-bay. Logan was standing over her.
"Welcome back", he smiled, genuinely pleased to see her.
"Back where we first met", she said, observing her surroundings. "Only...you were in my place and I was in yours".
The image went blurry. She could barely sort out the voices.
"Kill me", she sobbed. "Kill me before I kill somebody else".
"Jean...we can fix this...the Professor can-" he begin, before she blasted him across the room with a burst of telekinetic energy.
"I DON'T WANT TO FIX THIS!" she yelled in a voice she could barely recognize as her own.
Once again there was static
Jean...don't do this, she could hear Logan. It was what he was muttering to her right now back in the 'real world' and it was what resonated throughout his mindscape.
Logan...I have to. I have to know what happened she said and immersed herself in his memories once again.
She was on an island, in the middle of a literal battlefield. Thousand of darts flew towards her. Effortlessly, she made the air ripple around her and those darts froze in mid-air with barely a thought before they disintegrated.
Logan was rushing towards her and she was trying to kill him, his skin flaying off and re-growing every second.
"You would die for them", she spat out, scornfully.
"No...Not for them...for you".
And then, a brief moment of sanity.
"Save me", she pleaded, half-heartedly.
"I love you", he said, as in one swift movement, he stabbed her through the torso with his claws, fatally wounding her. She smiled serenely as the life ebbed out of her, as the Wolverine howled to the skies, cradling her corpse in his arms, like the beast whose name he'd taken.
She had a brief flash of Logan almost prostrated on the ground before a tombstone that read 'JEAN GREY' before she withdrew from his mind abruptly and snapped back to reality.
Back in his room now, mentally, they both stared at each other. Like two people who'd suddenly realized they didn't know each other before...but did now.
"Oh my God", was all she could mutter to herself.
"Jean...", Logan said, reaching out a hand to her. Without really thinking, she moved away from it.
"I...I need to be alone for a bit", she said, her whole body shaking. She got up and let herself out the door.
Logan sat up in bed for a while, before he tried to sleep again, struggling to suppress the memories he'd been trying to forget, but which now haunted him with renewed vigour.
o o o
The next time they were face to face was a few days later. It was after a Danger Room session they'd jointly run. Logan had just changed out of his uniform and stepped out of the locker room when he saw her. She looked at him and gave a weak smile.
"Hey", he said.
"Hey", she replied.
There was an awkward silence between them. He wasn't sure what to say, and he had a feeling neither did she. After all, what was there to say, between a woman who had died in another reality, and the man who had been forced to kill her?
"I'm...going to grab some coffee", she said. "Wanna come along?"
"Um...sure", he said, hesitantly. For once, he didn't feel particularly anxious to spend time with Jean, but he could sense it was important to her, to talk this through with him. In a sense, he was responsible for her current predicament.
There was no one in the kitchen except a couple of students, who promptly. Logan suspected that Jean had 'nudged' them to leave, so that they'd have privacy.
A few minutes later, they were seated at the table together, sipping from their coffee cups. Idly, Logan remembered a time, so long ago, when he'd sat with Bobby Drake in this very place, talking about, among other things, about the angst of wanting to be with someone, but not being able to. He wondered now, how that conversation would have gone had Stryker's men not attacked the school moments later. He wondered if that conversation had even happened in this new reality!
"I felt we really needed to talk...about what I saw", she said.
"Jean...I'm...sorry. For everything", Logan said. "I never wanted to do it...but I had no choice. You had become someone you didn't want to be...and you...the other you...wanted it that way" he said. Years, decades of repressed guilt and regret and sorrow pouring out abruptly.
"It's okay", Jean said, her hand reaching across the table to grasp his. "I understand".
"When I went back", Logan said, "I went back to stop the Sentinels from coming. But there was this time when I spoke to the Professor about you, Scott and Ororo...and how he needed to find you'll and bring the X-men together. And I'd hoped...that with what he saw in my mind, he'd do whatever it took to make sure what happened to you wouldn't happen again. That way, even if I didn't save the world...I'd at least have saved you".
"You did save me, Logan", Jean said. "You saved me, you saved Scott...you saved the whole world."
"I won't lie that I'll forget about what I saw in your head easily", she said. "But I think I will...eventually. It never happened to me. But it did happen to you. And I know you will never forget...no matter how much the Professor works on you. So I want you to promise me something".
She took a deep breath, and continued.
"Promise me, you'll forgive yourself for what you had to do". She paused for a moment, and added, in an almost choked voice. "And promise me that, if something like...that...ever happens to me again, you'll make the same choice. Before I hurt somebody".
"Don't ask me to do that, Jean", Logan pleaded. "I can't".
Jean gave him a piercing stare. "I know you, Logan...even without having to read your mind. I know that you're willing to do whatever it takes, when the time comes. Even if you say otherwise. And I love you for it".
She smirked. "Not in the way you think, of course".
Logan laughed, grateful for the moment of levity. "Of course".
"Well, I've gotta go. Can't keep Scott waiting", she said as got up and left.
She was a changed woman now. A woman reborn. A woman who'd been burnt to ash and, like a phoenix, had been resurrected. She was grateful for gift of life Logan had given her. But she was also grateful for the chance to know what might have been, and work doubly hard to ensure it wouldn't happen. A chance to remember the ashes.