They say goodbye in the same way they always do… with no goodbye at all.

"I love you," Bucky leans down and whispers to Tessa as the nurse prepares to wheel her off to surgery. He lays a soft, albeit tense, kiss on her forehead and looks down at her with uneasy eyes. "Be good," he tells her, putting on forced smile. "Don't try to take over and tell them what to do."

She quirks a brow at him. "I've never removed someone's kidney."

He lets out a small chuckle. "Like that would stop you from trying to take over."

"You think you know me," she intones lightly.

"I do." He gives her hand a quick squeeze and repeats, this time with a bit of trepidation, "I love you."

"I love you too," she breathes out, letting go of his hand so they can wheel her off to the OR. She shifts towards him and blows him a kiss, smacking her lips playfully. He shoots her a genuine smile and she lets the warmth that it brings course though her, hoping it will keep the cold dread at bay.

Her eyes begin nervously bouncing around, taking in the corridors around her. The further they get from Bucky, the looser her grasp becomes on his energy signature. Now she's left with nothing but the energy pulsating off of these strangers. And from within. And the lonelier and more frightened she becomes.

She'd been so busy being brave for the last several hours, so busy trying to act like nothing was wrong and everything would be fine, that she hadn't really taken the time to prepare herself for what was about to happen. Yeah, she could live without a kidney. But she sure as hell preferred to have them both.

And let's be honest, Tessa's not really one for Pollyanna idealism. She's a scientist. And any good scientist will tell you that no matter how much you may hope for a good outcome, you need to spend your time preparing for any and all possible bad outcomes. Which is precisely what she's doing now, all at once, as her mind suddenly begins reeling. Better late than never.

"You ready?" the anesthesiologist asks her once they get her prepped.

She looks up at him with wide, anxious eyes, and he responds with a kind smile and soothing touch to her forehead. His energy is calm, reassuring. She's certain he's done this hundreds of times before, not just put someone under for surgery, but tried to emanate positive energy to quell a patient's nerves. She finds herself wondering how often it works for people who don't have her ability to sense and take on energies. For her, though, it's doing wonders. "Okay," she nods after a long moment, her breathing steadying. "Okay."

He gives her a firm nod and says, "Just count back from one hundred…"

She begins to count, her eyes falling shut before she even reaches ninety-eight. She continues, as she drifts off, to hold tightly to his calming energy, working to coax it through her without actually pulling anything out of him. It's a trick she hasn't done in a very long time, an action she may well have forgotten how to perform.

But there were so many things lately that had been coming back to her. So many things resurfacing that she hadn't even realized she'd forgotten. So many…

She opens her eyes slowly, blinking in the darkness. The doctor's energy is gone now. She is alone. She looks around the dark room and recognizes it immediately, mostly from the smell. She's at Columbia, in her dorm room, caged in with the thick odor of her roommate's boyfriend's Drakkar Noir. She sits up slowly, realizing that she must've once again fallen asleep at her desk. She rises to move over to her bed, and that's when it hits her.

An energy. A power. A… force.

It's like nothing she's felt before. And she knows instantly that something, somewhere, has broken through.

Ah, that's right, she thinks to herself, oddly detached from the sensations creeping through her. Yes, I remember this. And just like that, she's outside her body, watching in aching detail as she relives the past.

It's the Phoenix – a power that should have remained disparate, spread out amongst the stars, peppered throughout the universe in small, manageable, barely perceptible morsels. It had somehow coalesced, taken root… and she knows just where.

She feels it in her bones, in her blood. Before she even has the wherewithal to think what it might be, her body, her soul knows. She feels it… even now, standing outside herself. Even now, the fire courses through her, the burn of pure energy.

She lets out a sigh, blinks once, twice… and suddenly it's the next day. The phone rings. Don't answer it, she wants to say. But no words come out.

They tell her to come home. Jean's back, they say. She's back. But she's not herself.

"And Scott?" She asks about him then, the moment Logan's voice filters softly to her through the phone. "I thought…" she starts. "I had a dream," she settles on, not at all certain that's was what it was. "I felt him… go."

A shudder moves through her as she listens for the words she's knows are to come. She can hear the hesitation on the other line, almost see Logan's face turn into a pained scowl. "He's gone," he says finally. "She killed him."

Tessa clamps her eyes shut, recalling how quickly she raced home, despite knowing in that moment that, to her, home was already gone.

When she opens her eyes again, she's with the Professor at Jean's childhood home. He tries to speak with her, tries to make her see that he did it for her, built the psychic wall to keep the overwhelming Phoenix Force at bay for her. So she could live a life. So she could be a person, instead of just a power. An absolute power.

Tessa stands motionless behind the Professor, staring blankly ahead at the woman she's known – and loved – for most of her life. The woman she no longer recognizes at all.

Jean turns to her then, once the Professor finishes his little speech. She connects with her eyes, stares deeply into them, and says, in an all to familiar voice, "I can hear you hum."

Then she turns… and pulls the Professor apart at the seams.

This is it, Tessa thinks. This is the first time. The first time that the deep, dark power courses through her.

When the Phoenix turns her energy on Tessa, she simply pulls it inside, holds it close, and lets it pulse through every nerve. It's terrifying, but also… invigorating, mesmerizing. And for the first time, she can hear the hum too, an odd sort of signal buzzing through her head and all around her.

How could I have forgotten this? she asks herself, her own voice small and muted as the past deafeningly comes to life around her. How could I have forgotten this feeling?

She doesn't quite know how she does it… she's not even sure it's really her… perhaps it's someone – something – else altogether. But it certainly seems as though she's the one who – through an odd sort of fog, an electrifying haze – manages to cobble the Professor back together. Somehow, she finds every tiny piece of him that the Phoenix had split apart, and she brings it all back together once again.

Then, all at once, the fog lifts and the world goes dark around the edges before closing in on her completely.

Blink. Blink, blink. She opens her eyes to a dimly lit room.

She's with the Professor, sitting quietly in his study. He tells her that he's sorry. He tells her that he wishes it didn't have to be this way. He tells her that, if he could, he would lift this burden from her shoulders. But he can't. No one can.

"You know what must be done," he says, the two cloaked in an otherwise solemn silence.

They had stepped away from Scott's memorial, just for a moment. She lets out a shuddering breath as she gazes out the window at the newly blossoming roses in the garden where Alex had, years ago, been buried. Where, later, they would set up a headstone for Scott as well, even though there was no body to inter.

"You're the only one who can do it," he says. And she knows it's the truth.

So I did it, she thinks. I did it.

They're in a forest, a thick, lush… bitterly cold forest. And she's doing it.

Every bit of penetrating, pulsating energy that the Phoenix throws at her, she pulls in for herself. She takes it on, takes it in, and spins it back around at the woman who looks so much like the one she'd loved. The constant back and forth, the pained onslaught, it weakens her.

It's a familiar feeling… like drowning… or burning…

She's dying. Her own life force fades with every tug and pull and quick release of the melded energies. In the battle between them, she feels herself and she feels the Phoenix. But she also feels Jean. And Scott. And tiny traces of Logan and Professor Xavier, both of whom had been bested by the Phoenix once already. And somehow, feeling all of those people that she loves within her, makes it that much easier to go on.

She knows there's no going back. She may die. But she will rid the Earth of this destructive energy first. She'll pull it apart and send it back out into the diaspora where its threat is limited.

"I can hear you hum," she hears then, the voice clear as day. Only this time it isn't the Phoenix speaking. It's Jean. She can hear the distinct timbre of her voice, see her all-too familiar face hovering before her. Her eyes, hazy with tears, are her own… for just a fraction of a moment. "You can outshine entire galaxies," she whispers to Tessa, as their bodies continue the exhausting struggle.

And then… the light in her eyes goes out.

Logan had waited. Waited for Jean to regain control. Waited for Tessa to pull as much of the Phoenix out of her as she could so that her body would be her own once more, even if only for a moment. Then he struck, burying his adamantium claws deep in her body as he buried his mournful face in the crook of her neck.

Jean fades, but Tessa's hold on the Phoenix is tenuous at best. She feels it trying to escape from her back into Jean's body. She can see the tiny rivulets of fire cascading through the air, attempting to coalesce once more. No, she thinks simply, the word echoing in her mind, playing over and over and over again in her own voice, in Scott's voice – in Jean's voice – as what remains of her energy settles into Tessa's very core.

Logan looks up at her with tear-filled eyes, begging, it seems… begging for her to finish it, to do what she can to keep Jean safe and free from this terror.

She takes hold of Jean's shoulders, her body slumping forward as the claws retract from her chest. Her fingers grip so tight it feels as though they might break. She looks at them and sees the recognizable arc of blue light pinging from their tips. Then she directs that light up and around, swirling streaks of blue through the air so that her energy mingles in with the deep fiery red of the Phoenix. The sparks meld together for a single, short-lived moment before she pulls back on the blue stems of light, bringing them back into her body along with the dark, hissing force they now encase.

And then… she pushes it all back out, creating a cataclysmic explosion of fire and ice that shoots directly into the nearly lifeless body before her. Jean's eyes burn blue, then red. Thin, glowing lines appear along her face, throughout her entire body. They grow and widen, cracking her flesh as the overwhelming energy pulsates through her, crackling down to her core and then back out, out, out, shooting from the fissures in her body.

She… explodes. There's no other word for it. Jean Grey simply explodes before her.

Tessa watches, arms still extended as though there were anything left for her hands to grasp. She watches as the fiery light blasts out of the small space they'd occupied for what seemed like hours, like days. She watches as it all slowly fizzles out.

She watches as small droplets of blood fall from the sky, falling back down to the earth around her. She watches as her fingers dance in the dark red rain, the blood from Jean's eviscerated body cascading down her pale flesh, dripping from her outstretched hands in never-ending rivulets.

She lowers herself slowly to the ground, legs crossing as she sits like a schoolgirl at story time. Her hands fall into her lap, her gaze fixed upon them as she begins to desperately try and wipe them clean of the still-collecting blood. She pulls and tugs and worries each finger until they go numb. She scrubs and rubs and wipes at her hands until the blood has been worked so deep into the cracks of her skin that she's certain the stains will never come out. Her eyes, burning from the salty liquid seeping into them, fall shut.

Still, she tries. Still, she tugs and pulls at her too-raw fingers. Until a strong hand falls atop them, slowly peeling her hands apart. The hand is rough and calloused, but somehow so, so tender as it delicately folds itself around her fingers.

"It's okay, baby," she hears, the voice sounding far off, the words filtering down through the unending hum inside her head. "It's okay," he says again, this time sounding nearer. She doesn't open her eyes, too afraid of what she might see. The blood. The destruction. The people she loves laid out before her in either death or grief. "It's okay."

The hum begins to fade. It's replaced by an eerie sort of quiet. There's no rustle of the wind through the trees, no sound of crunching footsteps on the forest floor. No soft murmurs of the people she knows were here just moments ago. There's just a subtle beeping to her left and a gentle breathing to her right.

She feels his lips press into her knuckles – Jamie. She feels the coolness of his metal palm come to rest at her temple. "Wake up, doll," he says softly. She knows his voice. She loves his voice. She loves him.

But still, she doesn't open her eyes. She can't.

"Shhh," she hears as she feels the bed dip beside her. "It's okay, baby. It's okay," he tells her, words tumbling out in a slow, desperate refrain. "It's okay," he says again, his voice nearly overtaken by the sudden sound of deep and steady sobs.

She tries to curl into the soothing chill of his hand, aching for it to pull away the burning.

"Shhh," he issues out again, his flesh hand dropping her fingers and coming up to take hold of the other side of her face. "Shhh, baby." She feels the pads of both thumbs as they glide over her hot cheeks, smearing the tears that are steadily pouring out of her. She tries to move, to curl into a tight ball, tight and small enough that she might just be able to disappear. But she can barely move. All her body will do, it seems, it shake and shudder as the long-held sobs spill out. "It's okay," he says again, his breath hot on her ear. "It's okay, baby. I got you." She pulls in a shaky breath and silently begs him to say it again. "I got you."