Its O.K., You know I dont own this.
Where My Feet Have Danced.
I dont know why we bother putting her in the ground. She never stays there. I wanted to put her under glass, sort of like sleeping beauty because I knew shed always rise again. I also knew my kiss would never wake her.
AI can give you her back. I can give you both of them back. I heard those words and even though I knew I should walk away, I couldn'tt. My legs would not go. I had, however, managed to throw his gray hand off my shoulder.
Apocalypse has not always been on the good side of the X-Men, his complications with us stemming from his association with Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Hes mutilated some of my teammates into his versions of the four horsemen; his own son had personally warped me into Death. Warren had held that title before me, and Gambit afterwards. Gambits dead now and I cant think of any reason that this man would want to help me.
AI aint buyin I growl as the rain that started as a dreary haze starts to pick up strength but Im not leaving yet. He could take her at any time, I know that I cant stop that, but I want answers. AWhat do you want with her? Hasn't her family killed you at least a dozen times? Didn't Cable just obliterate you?
He just smiles a horrible excuse for a smile as he sheds his guise of a normal mourner to the blue lipped version I know best. AYou know she will come back on her own, that you know, but will she come back as the Jean Grey that you love so very much, or will she come back as Phoenix? Perhaps something worse… I can assure Jean Grey. The child, I do as a kindness for my sons indiscretions. Besides that small matter, Jean Grey is not my primary concern. Ill do this matter for the smallest of prices. He pauses to let the implications sink in for me. AYou should know that Cable will never kill all of me.
My mind starts going through the list of whatever it could be. Perhaps a vessel for him to use as his new body made of Scott and Jeans mixed bloodlines? One of the other team members? El Saba Nur doesn'tt do anything that is not a direct benefit to himself.
Quit thinking, mutant as your thoughts are of no matter to me. He wearily tells me as now the wind starts to swirl around us, making a sad display of the damp leaves underfoot. AGive me Cyclops, he has something of mine that I desire back and kill Nathaniel Essex, hes been a thorn in my side for too long. He looks at me with a knowing eye, at least from what I can see through the needling rain. AI dont believe that should prove problematic for you, after all, Scott did kill the love of your life. The wind picks up to a howl as it must be Storms doing. The weather must be reflecting what shes feeling right now.
AI dont trust you! I scream still unwilling to leave.
Do as you wish. Apocalypse shrugs his massive shoulders as he starts to walk away in the downpour Ayou may tell Scott should you see fit, that Ill be coming for him. Hes playing games with me and it works.
Wait! I call after him and disbelief sets into my mind over what I hear myself so. AIll do it. Just give me her back. Them back. Please.
He smiles that smile at me again as he affirms our deal with his dead handshake. AWhen are you going to do this?
Her? I already have. She never was in that casket, as that was illusion. The baby? Jean Grey will be used as an incubator; Shell never need know she ever died. Scott, well I should imagine youd enjoy seeing him suffer a bit, no? He fades quickly into the squalling rain and as the hail starts, I almost know better than to look back. I was almost afraid of what Id see as I headed into the house. It seemed strange that the ground that her loved ones would come and cry at would never hold her and that secret would only be shared between two of us in that house. The two men that loved her best.
I enter the house in the back, everyone that was in the kitchen was sipping afternoon coffee sharing stories about the dead, and its O.K. Everyone does it. I find out through my unintentional eavesdropping that they all knew, or had at least suspected about the baby. Kitty says something in the way of sympathy for me and disbelief over how far that Scott was allowed to slip. All the chatter stopped when Rogue saw me standing there.
Logan? She reaches out to me with her gloved hand, probably slightly damp from the tears shes spilt not just over Jean, but for the memories of what had happened to Gambit that must be surfacing. She didn'tt remember much right after it happened, but over the two years some of the brutal savagery that a dose of my own mind and memories had led her to do. It wasnt her fault, no one could control the parts of me that coursed through and warped her mind. I certainly wasnt in control of myself enough to stop her, Im almost sure Id ripped someone up, bur Ill never really know.
I know, Darlin I tell her, not just because anything she has to tell me would hurt to badly, which it would, but I had to get to the one person I could not stand to see right now. I have to get to Scott. AYou dont have to say it.
I try to get out of there, but Jubilee insists on hugging me and telling me how sorry she is, asking if theres anything she can do and her sorrow over the loss of the baby. I do manage to pry her off, I can see that shes hurting, were the only family she has, and I arrange to have coffee with her later, but Ive got to get to Scott. He knows more than what hes telling me and after swimming though a sea of students dressed in black, most only whispering about who I was as only a few older students had ever met me, leaving me only a terrible legend a ghost story in their young minds.
When I get to his room, he looks like hes sleeping. I can tell that the power inhibiter is working in this room; that, in itself would give any telepath a headache. Hes attached to his bed; a good thing as we would probably be trying to kill each other right now. The slight grin that forms at the edges of his deformed mouth lets me in on that he knows Im here. AYou shouldn'tt have let him have her, Logan. Youll never get her back, youll get some version of her, but not the one youre hoping, stupid little man Scott goads me.
What do you know? Im not asking, Im demanding. I snap at him. He still never opens his eyes as he starts to answer me. His voice, while similar to what it should be, just isnt Scotts.
I was being merciful when I killed her, now youll have to do it again. He tries to lead me way from what I want.
You killed her so that I couldn'tt have her, and you weren'tt merciful to Emma. I argue, my blood starting to boil over this mans apathy over his deeds, over how unconcerned he is over taking the love of my life from me.
Is that how you see it? He laughs at me. AEmma, no, I wasnt merciful to and the rest of you are being overly so. Shes behind some of this and I wanted to see her suffer for taking Jean away from me and giving her to you. Jean had to die not just so you couldn'tt have her, but so he wouldn't. I failed, you failed.
First off, Scott, you sent her into my arms. I tell him in a calm, icy tone that would put Emma to shame. "Second off, I'll do whatever it takes to get her and that child back."
"And you don't think that Apocalypse has his own plans for her and the child?" Scott scoffs. "Emma knew too much. Believe it or not, she was trying to protect you, and her. She got in my way."
"So You're going to just kill anybody who doesn't go by your rules?" I chide him, still trying to keep from shredding his face, from truly blinding him as he'd done Emma. "I suppose Gambit had just gotten in your way too." That got him. I almost think I'd broken him when he finally did open his eyes and he started to scream.
"Get out! Get out of here!" He shouted in a voice that was finally just Scott. His eyes had opened to a murky mix of crimson and ebony, an eerie reminder of Gambit's own eyes. "It wasn't all… I didn't… GO!"
By the end of Scott's choppy sentences, Beast had managed to arrive and had plunged a needle of some vaguely greenish yellow liquid into Scott's arm, right before we both were blinded by a horrible white light. Then, he was gone, only the deafening roar of his screeching protests rang in our ears.
In his place, there was Jean, whole, alive and very obviously, pregnant. I had started to question whether she had really been dead. Maybe, the Phoenix force had just put her to sleep again. I sat by that bed for the better part of a week waiting for her to wake up.
"Hello, again." I whispered as her eyelids had started to flutter again.
"Logan?" She asked sleepily, almost slurring my name. "What…"
"Shhh baby. It was all a dream." I tell her as I kiss that little pale hand. "You're alright now. You and the baby are alright." I should have known she was too smart for that.
"If it was a dream, why am I in this bed and how did you know about the baby? No one knew." She sits up suddenly. "No! No, No, No, No! Logan! You didn't! This is wrong! I should be dead! You never should have trusted…!" She looks at me franticly. "You have to kill me! We don't know what he's done!"
"Jeannie," I looked down, my teeth gritted and tears stared to roll down my weathered face. "I'm not strong enough. I can't keep killing you, I can't kill my own child."
"Then I'll have to find some way, Logan." She says as she tries to stand up. "I don't know just what danger I've put you all in."
She doesn't quite get her feet on the ground before she clutches the sides of her head and her red hair peeks out in tendrils around her fingers. She starts to scream, drawing Hank's attention from a floor down. He's there before I know it, hooking her up to all sorts of machines and gadgets, wheeling her to a special room that Scott had insisted be built. It was a failsafe for when and if Jean's powers posed a threat to the known world, once we put her in, it was going to be hard, if not impossible to get her out. As her eyes flit back from orange fire to green, I know that Apocalypse's price wasn't just Scott's memories and it wasn't the death of Essex, which I've yet to do, he must have done something terrible to her.
"I love you, Red." I whisper as I kiss her cheek and we push her inside. We don't get the door shut, not because we hesitate, but because Scott, standing there with half his head shaved, blew it off. The ozone and plasma still fragranced the air as we note that he's brought along a hostage.
"Scott, why is Emma here?" Beast asks over concern for the limp woman being dragged.
"I need Emma and Jean for now." Scott tells us plainly. "We need them to save Sinister, or all of us will die."
O.K. The next chapter might be awhile as I've trashed my computer and have to find time after work to write. It's a long story, but a broken toe later, It'll be alright.