Sometimes, I sit in bed and wonder what would happen if things were different. If I'd been a different person. A better person. If I hadn't played up to the expectations of being a complete and total bitch. Or at least, if I hadn't reveled in it.
But then, who would I be? Would I have been her, that Phoenix symbol that scorches the back of my neck and reminds me that the person who was supposed to be my other half, my better half was also the X-men's sacred cow? Jean Grey who could do no wrong. Jean Grey idolized and put upon a pedestal so high that I could not dare to reach it no matter how much I might have wished to.
I wasn't supposed to love her and I never had any illusion that she could love me. But I wanted it, god but I wanted it from the moment I fell into her orbit and understood why she was on that pedestal.
She was mine, she was mine she was mine and yet I never told her, I never allowed myself to chance that happiness and show her that her mark, her Phoenix had a twin.
Jean died, as she often did, but death is a revolving door for mutants in general and Jean in particular.
Sometimes. Sometimes I sit in bed and wonder what would happen if things were different. Not many people get all the second chances I've been given.
And tonight, quite unexpectedly, that brand, that fire on my neck burns and I know the Phoenix has at last been reborn.
Jean, darling. I send out. We really need to talk.
I know, she says. And it's about damn time