EPILOGUE -- "AN EMOTIONAL AFTERMATH"
Blackbird, this is the Mansion. Scott, can you hear me?
With no recollection of ever having closed them, Wolverine opened his eyes, gazing curiously around at his surroundings. As the gentle voice of Charles Xavier had already suggested, they were back, aboard the Blackbird, in exactly the same positions that they had been in before their departure, and, as he continued to stare in disbelief at the reassuringly-familiar environment, Logan judged the time to be a few moments after their initial departure. The only difference, and this struck Wolverine as decidedly unnerving, was that the storm--that strange, unnatural event that had set him on edge in the first place--no longer assaulted the side of the sleek aircraft.
Turning in surprise to frown out of the window, Logan noted that not only had the storm completely dissipated, but, more specifically, that the sun was shining brightly--almost blindingly so, though the power was nothing compared to the searing fierceness of four celestial bodies, all shining simultaneously--in a perfect cloudless sky. This, even more than the original thunderstorm, concerned the suspicious mutant, though the gentle sunshine suggested that the turbulence--in terms of both the atmospheric pressure and Logan's own internal concern--was now far behind them... assuming, of course, that it had ever *genuinely* existed in the first place.
As he returned his attention to the inside of the Blackbird, Wolverine observed that all of his companions appeared deeply exhausted, even the energetic Jubilee, who slumped sideways in her chair, eyes downcast and filled with unbridled heartbreak. Gambit was gazing out of the window, his mysterious eyes even darker than usual as he stared emotionlessly at the blue sky and solitary sun, and face darkened by concern and regret. Scott sat stoic as ever in his seat, though his face was drawn and his posture slack. Rogue, beside him and conscious for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, was groaning, arms wrapped tightly around herself; Logan found himself wondering for the briefest of moments how they would be able to explain her impossible injuries to Beast and the Professor. Storm was sighing very softly as she stood beside Wolverine, eyes closed in some form of meditative contemplation; Wolverine knew better than to interrupt her. It appeared fairly obvious, Logan observed thoughtfully, that all of his teammates had been actively affected by their adventure--the selfsame adventure that, according to the spectral DungeonMaster, was supposed to have never occurred.
Cyclops leaned forwards in his seat, frowning at the craft's small monitor screen. "Professor?" he said, and his voice held the dulled awe that seemed to fill all of them, even--deniably--Logan himself.
Scott, the crisis is over. Wolverine could tell from the almost-inaudible level of concern in Xavier's voice that the Professor was at a complete loss to explain this sudden change in the situation, and that this lack of knowledge upset and, to some degree, angered him; to be perfectly honest, however, Logan did not care. After all that they had been through, he simply wanted to go home, and as Charles continued to address the half-listening Cyclops, Logan allowed himself to partially 'zone out', though he consciously kept half an ear on the quiet exchange. As of yet, we have no explanation as to how such a serious problem could possibly come to repair itself so effortlessly, but it is no longer the concern of the X-Men. Bring your team home, Scott.
Nodding with visible relief, Cyclops leaned forwards. "Will do, Professor. We'll be home in around fifteen minutes. Blackbird out." He yawned and leaned back in his seat, reaching up to massage his temples. "I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone here when I say that *this* has been the most exhausting non-mission we've *ever* been called out on!" He sighed softly, and Logan found his full attention being forcibly returned to Scott's half-smiling speech. "And, of course, the others will have *no* idea why we're all so tired." Wolverine felt his chest tightening a little at this realisation; each of them had been touched on a very deep level by this experience, and the painful understanding that none of the others--not even Chuck himself, or the beautiful Jean Grey--would ever know about it, struck the exhausted mutant as decidedly unsettling. Yet another non-existent adventure.
Sighing, Cyclops flipped a switch on his control panel, apparently engaging some form of autopilot program, and turned to address Rogue. His voice was very quiet as he reached for her shoulder. "Are you all right?"
She shook her head, closing her eyes, and Wolverine could see her attempts to fight back tears. "It'll be a long time before I'm all right, Cyke," she admitted softly. "Even after I stop hurting here--" she released her death-grip on her midsection, and Logan noticed with some discomfort that her uniform was shredded in places "--I've still got him inside my head. It's gonna be a long hard fight ta keep him outta me." She began to tremble, and Storm moved to kneel beside her.
"That may be," Ororo murmured very softly, "but we shall remain by your side throughout. You need not face this battle alone." Wolverine smiled at her compassion, catching himself before allowing the emotion to touch his face. "The creature that has done this to you is countless miles away now. You are safe, and your mind shall heal, just as your body is doing now."
Rogue nodded wearily and rested her head on Storm's shoulder; Logan felt a twinge of anxiety at seeing the strong and courageous mutant suddenly so weak and vulnerable. "I know, sugar," she said, forcing a watery smile. "But that ain't gonna make it any easier to deal with. And y'can bet that Jean and th'Professor ain't gonna believe us if we tell 'em about this..."
"No, Chere," Gambit spoke calmly, shaking his head with emphatic certainty. "They gonna know. They gonna ask what happened t'ya, why you got hurt when we never even had a mission, *how* ya could've gotten hurt ta begin with. They gonna go inside your head, and wanna know why you so frightened. And they gonna find out everythin', even if ya don't tell 'em." He climbed to his feet, placing a reassuring hand on Jubilee's arm, sighing as she remained uncharacteristically withdrawn. "They gonna know that you been fightin' someone from another world. They gonna know that Cyclops and Wolverine and Gambit were all there wi'ya. And they gonna be angry." He clenched his fists, fighting back an obvious wave of fury. "You'll see, Chere. Gambit always right 'bout these things."
Shrugging carelessly, Rogue groaned and slumped back in her seat. "Look, I appreciate yer concern, but if y'all don't mind, I just wanna try an' get some sleep 'fore we get back to th'Mansion. Guess I'm not feelin' so good. So, if it's all right... would y'all jus' leave me alone until we get home?" She sighed almost inaudibly, and closed her eyes.
Cyclops and Storm exchanged worried glances, and Gambit closed his eyes sadly, then promptly turned his attention to Jubilee. Wolverine, who had consciously kept a distance from the emotional proceedings, sighed softly and moved to stand stoically behind the Cajun's seat, listening with undeniable curiosity to his soft-spoken conversation with the young mutant.
"Aw, Petite. Y'wanna tell Gambit about it?" he asked gently, kneeling beside the melancholy young girl. "Gambit saw you and that other petit back there... Gambit reckon you gonna miss him."
Jubilee smiled bravely, reaching up to pull Bobby's hat from her head, holding it loosely in her hands and gazing miserably down at it. "Yeah, I guess I am. But I've got this stupid thing to remind me of him... and who knows? Maybe I'll get the chance to see him again some time... and get my jacket back!" She grinned and leaned back against her chair, laughing at the irony of her hopeful statement. "Woah... when we first got dragged to that crazy place, all I wanted was to get out of there! Now we finally get back home, here I am saying, You never know, we might go back there some day!"
Wolverine growled. "Things change, kid."
And, indeed, they had changed for him as well. Despite his lingering contempt for the act of forced altruism that he and his comrades had been 'asked' to perform on behalf of DungeonMaster and the Realm, and against his active distaste for the obnoxious and loud-mouthed Cavalier, Wolverine knew that it would be a long time before he was able to look back upon the adventure with anything less than deep regret. He had revelled in the thrill of that classic struggle between Good and Evil, he had enjoyed taking the unfortunate young Magician under his wing, moulding his impressionable young mind into the courageous and emotionless individual that he had been upon Logan's reluctant departure. He had loved the freedom of simply *fighting* without the need to contemplate orders or ethics. Yes indeed, things had changed, and Logan's initial disgust at their rude capture had waned significantly since their arrival. Against all odds, he would miss it.
Looking to his companions, he took some comfort in the obvious observation that he would not be alone in this position. It was clear from even the briefest of glances that each of the X-Men had been touched at a very personal level by the adventure, and would miss it. As his eyes passed over each of his comrades in turn, it was evident that each of them had been struck at very different levels, and in very different ways, and these, he knew, whatever they were, would remain within the hearts of the X-Men for many years, even if they never again returned to the Realm.
Cyclops sat and stared thoughtfully at his consoles, a nostalgic smile occasionally crossing his face, quickly checked by his inbred sense of leadership and seriousness; had Wolverine not held his gaze for more than a moment, he would not have noticed it. Logan had observed Scott's quiet conversations with the girl Diana, and, even from the respectful distance he had sustained, he had been perfectly aware of what their discussions had entailed: revelations from one leader to another. Logan knew Cyclops well enough to understand that he would not have allowed his professional charade to falter, even momentarily, yet he had distinctly heard the girl mentioning the words 'loosen up' to the stoic mutant; at the time, Wolverine had simply laughed at the visual image of Scott Summers 'loosening up', but looking back to the half-heard conversations now, and seeing the partially-checked smiles that found their way onto the stoic group leader's face, he wondered if the idea was in fact as preposterous as it had first appeared.
Storm remained by Rogue's side, watching her sleeping friend with obvious distress. Wolverine had seen very little of the elemental mutant after the group had split, and so did not know as much about her experiences as he would have liked. Her eyes, though, were distant and pain-filled as she gazed at Rogue, and her features were tight with sadness. Logan sighed softly; he had witnessed the solemn respect with which Storm had wished farewell to the handsome young Ranger Hank. He did not think for one moment that she had been foolish enough to allow more than a professional relationship to develop, but he knew from experience that even the most businesslike of professional bonds could be excruciatingly painful when they were finally broken. He growled softly to himself as he watched her silent suffering, wishing fervently for some way to ease her pain, but knowing that there was nothing he could do, short of expressing his own regret-and that was something he was not willing to do.
Rogue slept. Logan saw the agony on her features as she writhed in her seat, whimpering softly and crying out as she battled invisible demons; it was she that Wolverine pitied more than any of the others. She alone, he knew, was relieved to be back in the real world, to have no concerns but the violent acts of terrorist humans and rebellious mutants, and she alone, would live in eternal fear of the ever-existing possibility that, one day, they would be forced to return to that place of nightmares. Admittedly, her compassionate defensiveness towards the mouthy Cavalier had angered him, but his contempt and annoyance had died in the instant she had absorbed the Quintessence's power. There had been an enormous question-mark over whether her absorption powers would in fact work against the supernatural being, but she had tried anyway... And she had been punished for that courage, to a depth that even Logan couldn't fully comprehend. And, as she had stated earlier, he knew that it would be a long time before she recovered.
Gambit still stood beside Jubilee, sighing softly and gazing at the top of the girl's head; even the unflappable Cajun, it seemed, had been affected by the adventure. Wolverine smiled slightly; he had noticed the gentleness with which Remy had held the Young One named Sheila, even during the most heartstopping of moments, and he knew--even without having directly witnessed it--that the sly mutant had once again used his innate Cajun 'charm' to woo an unsuspecting lady. He chuckled softly, knowing that, as long as he had Rogue to care for and pursue--and as long as the ordeal didn't kill her--Gambit would recover. He had taken far too many women in his lifetime to allow the young Thief to be anything special. Perhaps the girl, still trapped within the confines of the Realm, would be heartbroken, but Logan knew Remy too well to expect the same from him; one or two shots of liquor would undoubtedly soothe the Cajun's disposition.
Jubilee, on the other hand, appeared genuinely devastated by her separation from the wild little boy. She held the Barbarian's hat in her hands, and was gazing down at it with a deep, tangible sadness. Wolverine growled unhappily, wanting to offer the kid some form of consolation, but knowing that he could not. She too would recover in time, he knew, once she returned to the Mansion and once again became involved in missions and real-world adventures; Wolverine doubted that she would ever forget about the boy--though he could not quite figure out whether their obvious friendship had been anything more--and he could see that she would place the hat on display with the deepest of pride (and Wolverine found himself momentarily wondering what Jean and Chuck would have to say about *that*). She was strong, Logan knew, far too strong to allow a long-distance friendship to spoil her mood for very long.
They would all recover, he mused, returning his attention to his own internal conflicts, as would he. The adventure had been wild, spontaneous, deadly, and had contained parts of every other trait that his primitive nature thrived upon. But now it was over, and he could do nothing but long for the disordered sense of chaos that he had been blessed with for the duration of the surreal journey. He sighed deeply, and turned his gaze to the front window; upon the distant horizon, he was certain he could see the silhouetted outline of Venger's Castle and, as the spectral afterimage faded from his field of vision like the lingering ghost that it was, he suddenly found himself wishing with the same depth of passion that the others displayed so readily, that it had, through some miracle, truly been there, waiting for him to return and destroy the legendary Quintessence of Evil.
"Ten minutes," said Cyclops, head low.
Wolverine clenched his fists, impatiently extending his claws. It was going to be a damned long flight.
*****
Hank sat under a tree and healed. Like the legendary Phoenix, he had risen from the Fires of Hell, cleansed and reborn through the purity of the flames... yet the pain of what he had lost haunted him, as, he knew, they would for the rest of his sorry existence.
He was a failure. He had choked at a vital deciding moment during the most important battle in the entire history of the Realm. He had screwed up, and, had it not been for DungeonMaster, the one individual that he had felt able to attack with all of his pent-up fury, he would have undoubtedly been killed. DungeonMaster. He who had sacrificed himself for his beliefs, for all that was important to him. The one that Hank had seen fit to turn his back on.
The others huddled together a short distance away; Bobby dozed in the dwindling sunshine, his small body completely covered by the bright yellow jacket that Jubilee had given him upon her departure. Sheila stood over her brother's slumbering form, gazing down at him with a beautiful smile upon her lips, one that was tainted with nostalgic sorrow. Eric and Presto sat together, the former leaning on a nearby rock and laughing cruelly at the latter's futile attempts to conjure some non-charred clothes for the melancholy Ranger; for them, it seemed, life had returned all too quickly to normal. As for Diana... Hank smiled and shook his head, looking briefly up at the shadowed figure beside him; she remained by his side, as always, a silent pillar of strength from which he could draw the courage needed to keep going.
His tattered shirt lay on the ground, discarded, and he winced slightly as he inhaled, feeling the starched bandages that Presto had somehow managed to bring forth from his hat straining against his pulsing skin. His burns would heal eventually, but it would be a long time before his emotional wounds did the same. He had made the biggest mistake of his life, and, had it not been for the X-Men and DungeonMaster himself, the Realm would have been doomed.
Tiamat was dead. DungeonMaster was trapped in some bizarre plane of reality, with a creature that was the true personification of all things evil. The Realm had almost been destroyed. They had all nearly been killed.
All because of him.
Since arriving in the Realm, Hank and the others had all made mistakes at some point. Admittedly, some of these mistakes had been rather more significant than others, but still, the fact that he was not unique in his mortal weakness should have offered him some form of consolation. But it didn't. He was their leader, he *should* have been able to handle the unexpected situation, or, at the very least, to pretend that he was not dying inside from the agony of terror. He should have led his friends to victory, *he* and not DungeonMaster. He and his friends had been recruited by the old man--albeit unwillingly--to help in the defence of the Realm, and he had screwed up. Some brave and heroic Ranger.
"Hank," Diana murmured.
He sighed and shook his head, clenching his fists tightly in spite of the pain that it caused to do so. "No. I don't want to hear it. You're going to try and get me to think that what happened *wasn't* my fault. Well, guess what? I don't want to believe that. A *real* leader, the kind of leader that I'll never be, always accepts the blame, no matter what."
"Oh Hank..." she whispered, and her quiet gentleness stabbed at his heart, wounding him at a physical level as he struggled against her soft-spoken words of encouragement. As she reached out, placing a tender hand upon his searing hot shoulder, he felt a wave of emotion rolling through him, so powerful that he was almost unable to hold it back. "Don't do this to yourself. It was a hard situation, a *really* hard situation, and you were scared. Everyone was scared. There's no shame in losing control when you're so scared you can't think straight. It happens to everyone. Even *real* leaders."
He took her hand, pulling it forcefully away from his burned skin. "No it doesn't! You managed to keep together, the damned X-Men held their own against him, even *Presto* didn't break down! Only me. Do you have *any* idea how that feels?" He clenched his fist and resisted the urge to lash out in self-loathing. "I was in charge. I was the one that Bobby and Sheila and DungeonMaster and *everyone* was counting on! I was supposed to be the hero, the one who knew what was going on, the goddamned hero! And what happened? I stopped functioning."
Staggering to his feet, he leaned against the tree, breathing heavily. She sighed wearily and pushed herself gracefully into a standing position. "You're being selfish," she warned. "We've all been through this. You're no different to Eric or Sheila... or Bobby..." At this, she cut off, apparently aware of the sharpness with which Hank felt himself inhaling. Bobby. The poor little boy who had been forced, as a direct result of Hank's carelessness, to witness that which no ten-year-old should ever see. The Ranger hated himself for this, more even than for the cowardice that he had allowed himself to display so freely in front of his companions. *He* had taken away from Bobby that which could never be returned.
"SHUT UP!" he heard himself shouting, and, before he was even aware of the motion, he saw from a sickening distance his own fist, blazing with the fire that still stabbed at his pain receptors, flying towards her face. "Don't you think I *know* that?" His breathing was ragged and laboured, even as he watched her hit the ground in response to his punch; he did not even think to apologise or offer to help her up, so lost was he in his own raging fury. "I *know* that I'm not the only one! Damn it, don't you think I wish I *was*? But the rest of you had no damned PROBLEMS! I'm the strongest, the bravest, the *leader*. I'm the one who should have been standing tall while the rest of you lost control! But I *didn't*! Because of *me*, Bobby has grown up ten years too early! What he lost back there, what *I* took from him, I can never give back! I killed him! I took away everything that was important to him, and you expect me to just throw my hands up and say 'so what?'! Why the hell can't you understand?"
She stood up again, slowly, rubbing the side of her face. "I do," she said very quietly. "But you don't." Without warning, she gripped his shoulders--completely ignoring his screams of pain--and shook him. "We've all been there. All of us. You're nothing special. You're just like the rest of us. A stupid, frightened little kid." Her eyes burned as she shook him harder, and he felt his tenuous grasp on consciousness beginning to falter as the pain in his shoulders escalated to impossible levels. "Bobby will get over it, so why the hell can't you? Why can't you see it? We're all mortal, and we're all useless." And suddenly, as he felt her hold on his flesh loosening, he realised for the first time that she too had been affected by this encounter, that she too had-through his mistake-lost a part of herself that could never again be retrieved. Her defeatism, her sudden, complete, lack of emotion struck him harder than any physical blow could have.
Diana had given up.
As he stared at her, delirious with pain and overwhelmed by all that had happened in such a horribly short time, he found himself thinking back to their earlier conversation, the gentle reassurances that she had offered him, the joking comments they had both made in the time before all of *this* had ever been a concern. And now, all of a sudden, the pressure, the pain, and the sheer weight of his own inadequacies had amplified to an impossible level. It was more than heartbreaking. In such a short time, he had lost everything: his belief in himself, his trust in the once-sacred wisdom of the absent DungeonMaster, and every ethic or moral he had ever accepted.
And then there was Tiamat. She had died because of his miscalculation. His failure.
"Did it make you feel better?" Diana was asking. He blinked, frowning with silent puzzlement. "When you hit me. Did it make you feel any better?" She leaned against the tree, smiling faintly as he paused to contemplate the question. "Because if it did, even a little, I want you to do it again. And again. Until your pain is gone."
Ridiculously, he felt his fist clenching once again, and his body moved of its own accord towards her. But he could not do it. He could not bring himself to strike her again. Because it *hadn't* made him feel better. In fact, after that thoughtless act of unplanned violence, his opinion of himself was far lower now than it had been-assuming, of course, that such was possible. "I..." he broke off, sighing as she began once again to grin. "I can't. You know I can't."
"Why not?" she asked, and he could see by the knowing gleam in her eyes that she had him right where she wanted him. Her own lack of faith remained hidden beneath the surface of her unbreakable facade of strength, for which he was eternally grateful. She smiled, waiting for him to respond to the obviously rhetorical question. "I'll tell you why not. Because it didn't make you feel better at all, did it? You could hit me a thousand times and still feel just as empty inside as you do now, if not even more so." She stepped casually away from the tree, taking his shoulders once more, gently this time, and smiling as he grimaced in pain. "So you've got to ask yourself, Hank: If punching me didn't make you feel any better, if striking down one of your closest friends only made you feel *worse* about yourself, how the hell do you expect to heal if you keep beating up on yourself?" He stared at her, in complete disbelief at the sense that she was making.
He took a breath, consciously aware of the concerned gazes of Sheila, Eric, and Presto as they stopped what they were doing and turned to see what the commotion was about. "I..." he couldn't find the words to express his feelings, so he decided to make light of the situation instead. "You stood there and let yourself get knocked down *just* so you could tell me to stop torturing myself?" He shook his head. "You're a nut case."
"That's what friends are for, Hank," she said quietly. "That's what you've always been there for when we needed someone to knock down. Because when you punch a friend, they'll always come back eventually... if only to tell you that you've been an idiot. But when you do the same to yourself, there's nobody there to tell you that you're being stupid, so you just keep doing it again and again until you completely destroy everything that was important, everything that was *you*." She grinned lopsidedly, and he could already see a bruise beginning to form on her cheek. "Just think about it for a second before you start beating up on yourself again."
He sighed softly, then, because he knew that she was right, he simply turned and walked away, leaving her gazing sadly after him, and the rest of his friends stunned into silence by his unwarranted violence. He kept on walking, not once looking back, until, scant minutes later, the agony of his burns forced him to sit and rest. Only then did he open his eyes--having no recollection of actually closing them--and turn back, gazing at the distant smeared blobs that were his friends, his heavy heart bleeding with the knowledge that things would never again be the same.
DungeonMaster was gone. Venger was no more. Tiamat was dead. Bobby had lost his precious innocence, and Hank had done nothing to protect it. Diana had lost her faith, and Hank had responded to this by punching her. Sheila was weeping; even from this distance, he could hear her desperate cries as she too realised that, all of a sudden, everything had changed.
The return of the X-Men to their fictional world had struck Hank as a devastating blow. They had gone home, and the Young Ones were left to clean up. The X-Men would forget about the adventure they had shared, but Hank and his friends would not be able to. They were left in the aftermath of the battle, in a Realm that had been plunged into chaos. No Good, no Evil. Nothing except Hank, and he no longer had the strength inside to care.
He had not spoken much to his companions since the departure of the X-Men, and so knew little of their emotional states. And, for the first time in his entire life, it did not matter to him. He had seen Sheila fighting back sobs as the handsome Cajun Gambit had been sent back to his world, had observed the covert tears shed by Bobby as his young friend Jubilee left him with nothing but a large yellow jacket to remember her by. He had seen the courageous pain in Presto's eyes as he had bid a fond farewell to his newfound--and, undeniably, somewhat unexpected and inappropriate--guru, the wild mutant Wolverine. He had observed all of this, and much more, but could not find the strength within himself to care about any of it.
Sheila would get over Gambit. Bobby would learn to live without Jubilee. Presto would go on without Wolverine's harsh guidelines. The world would continue, as it always had, and as it always would. So Hank did not care. He simply sat there, alone and unhappy, and waited for the searing agony in his body to fade away to a degree that would allow him to return to his companions. He would offer his deepest apologies for his inexcusable behaviour, without meaning a single word of it, and they would accept his insincere words, knowing that his honesty was as false as his plastic smile. They would lay down to sleep, and awaken the following morning, once again ready to begin their hopeless quest for the way home, and life would go on as per normal.
He too would miss the X-Men. He would miss Storm's gentle compassion and depthless wisdom, would miss young Jubilee's energy and youthful wildness, would even miss watching Gambit's charming advances towards Sheila. But, like Bobby, Sheila, Presto, and all the others, he would get over it. The world would continue spinning, the suns would rise and fall in the same way. The simplistic essence of Life, the Universe, and Everything would continue as if nothing had changed. But it would be a pretence, a falsehood, something to allow the Young Ones a faint glimmer of artificial hope. Fake, dead, and empty. Just like Hank himself.
Sighing, he climbed once more to his feet, squinting across the modest distance he had traversed before being forced to collapse. From this quiet region of solitary contemplation, he could easily see his friends: Bobby still sleeping soundly, Sheila crying softly at the drastic violence of Hank's unwarranted act, Diana standing still and silent exactly where he had left her, Eric and Presto gazing in motionless disbelief at the chaos surrounding them. As he began to limp back to them, he found himself grasping for words to express the necessary apology that he could not--no matter how hard he tried--bring himself to believe in.
They looked up as he returned, gazing at him with varied expressions. Sheila's beautiful eyes were clouded with tears of betrayal and a pain that Hank knew he could not heal. Presto's face was hot with an anger that was so deep and pure that Hank felt momentarily frightened by it; it only took a moment to realise that the Magician's rage was directed at the situation in general, and not at him specifically, although the shock of seeing his mild and quiet friend so transformed struck a chord of emotion deep within the Ranger. Yet another change that he, in his infinite heroism, had been unable to prevent. Eric was shaking his head sadly, eyes void of all feeling and face contorted with the same cold betrayal that pasted itself across Sheila's features. Diana had a proud smile on her lips, and, against the quiet murmurs of the others, took a single step towards the chagrin Ranger, hand outstretched, and eyes containing nothing but sweet forgiveness.
And still, through all of this conflict, all of this clashing hatred and pain and loss and regret, Bobby continued to sleep.
He kept his head down as he mumbled the empty apology, hearing Eric's derisive snort and Presto's disappointed growl. Suddenly, as he flinched in response to their coldness, he realised that *this* was what had let them down. They understood his moment of terror and indecision during the heat of the battle. They had always understood, just as Diana had said. But this, this violence, this selfish rage, *this* had caused them to lose their once-unshakable trust in him. He felt icy tears soothing the burns on his cheeks; once again, he had screwed up. Yet another failure. He could not take it... but he knew that, this time, he *had* to. For their sakes, he had to.
"It's over," Diana was saying softly, moving to his side; her hand was still outstretched, reaching for him in a gesture of unbreakable friendship. "It's all over. Just let it go." He gazed into her eyes, and saw nothingness; for as long as he had known her, she had always had a blazing depth to her eyes that no other could equal... But now it was gone, extinguished forever, thanks to him. She did not believe her own words, and, for reasons that he could only guess at, this made them all the more significant to him. He listened, mesmerised by the sheer emptiness in her eyes and the complete lack of conviction in her speech. "It's all gone. Everything. And it's never going to come back, so you *have* to let it go. Not for us. Not because you want to be a good leader. For yourself. You have to let it go."
He nodded, dumb and cold, and took her hand. In that fragile instant, that eternal moment of pure tactile contact--as he fought once more against the screams of physical pain at the manifestation of his journey through Hell--he felt, for the first time in as long as he could recall, the vital life-essences of courage and certainty beginning finally to flicker once again into existence deep within him.
They were going to be all right.
END
Blackbird, this is the Mansion. Scott, can you hear me?
With no recollection of ever having closed them, Wolverine opened his eyes, gazing curiously around at his surroundings. As the gentle voice of Charles Xavier had already suggested, they were back, aboard the Blackbird, in exactly the same positions that they had been in before their departure, and, as he continued to stare in disbelief at the reassuringly-familiar environment, Logan judged the time to be a few moments after their initial departure. The only difference, and this struck Wolverine as decidedly unnerving, was that the storm--that strange, unnatural event that had set him on edge in the first place--no longer assaulted the side of the sleek aircraft.
Turning in surprise to frown out of the window, Logan noted that not only had the storm completely dissipated, but, more specifically, that the sun was shining brightly--almost blindingly so, though the power was nothing compared to the searing fierceness of four celestial bodies, all shining simultaneously--in a perfect cloudless sky. This, even more than the original thunderstorm, concerned the suspicious mutant, though the gentle sunshine suggested that the turbulence--in terms of both the atmospheric pressure and Logan's own internal concern--was now far behind them... assuming, of course, that it had ever *genuinely* existed in the first place.
As he returned his attention to the inside of the Blackbird, Wolverine observed that all of his companions appeared deeply exhausted, even the energetic Jubilee, who slumped sideways in her chair, eyes downcast and filled with unbridled heartbreak. Gambit was gazing out of the window, his mysterious eyes even darker than usual as he stared emotionlessly at the blue sky and solitary sun, and face darkened by concern and regret. Scott sat stoic as ever in his seat, though his face was drawn and his posture slack. Rogue, beside him and conscious for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, was groaning, arms wrapped tightly around herself; Logan found himself wondering for the briefest of moments how they would be able to explain her impossible injuries to Beast and the Professor. Storm was sighing very softly as she stood beside Wolverine, eyes closed in some form of meditative contemplation; Wolverine knew better than to interrupt her. It appeared fairly obvious, Logan observed thoughtfully, that all of his teammates had been actively affected by their adventure--the selfsame adventure that, according to the spectral DungeonMaster, was supposed to have never occurred.
Cyclops leaned forwards in his seat, frowning at the craft's small monitor screen. "Professor?" he said, and his voice held the dulled awe that seemed to fill all of them, even--deniably--Logan himself.
Scott, the crisis is over. Wolverine could tell from the almost-inaudible level of concern in Xavier's voice that the Professor was at a complete loss to explain this sudden change in the situation, and that this lack of knowledge upset and, to some degree, angered him; to be perfectly honest, however, Logan did not care. After all that they had been through, he simply wanted to go home, and as Charles continued to address the half-listening Cyclops, Logan allowed himself to partially 'zone out', though he consciously kept half an ear on the quiet exchange. As of yet, we have no explanation as to how such a serious problem could possibly come to repair itself so effortlessly, but it is no longer the concern of the X-Men. Bring your team home, Scott.
Nodding with visible relief, Cyclops leaned forwards. "Will do, Professor. We'll be home in around fifteen minutes. Blackbird out." He yawned and leaned back in his seat, reaching up to massage his temples. "I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone here when I say that *this* has been the most exhausting non-mission we've *ever* been called out on!" He sighed softly, and Logan found his full attention being forcibly returned to Scott's half-smiling speech. "And, of course, the others will have *no* idea why we're all so tired." Wolverine felt his chest tightening a little at this realisation; each of them had been touched on a very deep level by this experience, and the painful understanding that none of the others--not even Chuck himself, or the beautiful Jean Grey--would ever know about it, struck the exhausted mutant as decidedly unsettling. Yet another non-existent adventure.
Sighing, Cyclops flipped a switch on his control panel, apparently engaging some form of autopilot program, and turned to address Rogue. His voice was very quiet as he reached for her shoulder. "Are you all right?"
She shook her head, closing her eyes, and Wolverine could see her attempts to fight back tears. "It'll be a long time before I'm all right, Cyke," she admitted softly. "Even after I stop hurting here--" she released her death-grip on her midsection, and Logan noticed with some discomfort that her uniform was shredded in places "--I've still got him inside my head. It's gonna be a long hard fight ta keep him outta me." She began to tremble, and Storm moved to kneel beside her.
"That may be," Ororo murmured very softly, "but we shall remain by your side throughout. You need not face this battle alone." Wolverine smiled at her compassion, catching himself before allowing the emotion to touch his face. "The creature that has done this to you is countless miles away now. You are safe, and your mind shall heal, just as your body is doing now."
Rogue nodded wearily and rested her head on Storm's shoulder; Logan felt a twinge of anxiety at seeing the strong and courageous mutant suddenly so weak and vulnerable. "I know, sugar," she said, forcing a watery smile. "But that ain't gonna make it any easier to deal with. And y'can bet that Jean and th'Professor ain't gonna believe us if we tell 'em about this..."
"No, Chere," Gambit spoke calmly, shaking his head with emphatic certainty. "They gonna know. They gonna ask what happened t'ya, why you got hurt when we never even had a mission, *how* ya could've gotten hurt ta begin with. They gonna go inside your head, and wanna know why you so frightened. And they gonna find out everythin', even if ya don't tell 'em." He climbed to his feet, placing a reassuring hand on Jubilee's arm, sighing as she remained uncharacteristically withdrawn. "They gonna know that you been fightin' someone from another world. They gonna know that Cyclops and Wolverine and Gambit were all there wi'ya. And they gonna be angry." He clenched his fists, fighting back an obvious wave of fury. "You'll see, Chere. Gambit always right 'bout these things."
Shrugging carelessly, Rogue groaned and slumped back in her seat. "Look, I appreciate yer concern, but if y'all don't mind, I just wanna try an' get some sleep 'fore we get back to th'Mansion. Guess I'm not feelin' so good. So, if it's all right... would y'all jus' leave me alone until we get home?" She sighed almost inaudibly, and closed her eyes.
Cyclops and Storm exchanged worried glances, and Gambit closed his eyes sadly, then promptly turned his attention to Jubilee. Wolverine, who had consciously kept a distance from the emotional proceedings, sighed softly and moved to stand stoically behind the Cajun's seat, listening with undeniable curiosity to his soft-spoken conversation with the young mutant.
"Aw, Petite. Y'wanna tell Gambit about it?" he asked gently, kneeling beside the melancholy young girl. "Gambit saw you and that other petit back there... Gambit reckon you gonna miss him."
Jubilee smiled bravely, reaching up to pull Bobby's hat from her head, holding it loosely in her hands and gazing miserably down at it. "Yeah, I guess I am. But I've got this stupid thing to remind me of him... and who knows? Maybe I'll get the chance to see him again some time... and get my jacket back!" She grinned and leaned back against her chair, laughing at the irony of her hopeful statement. "Woah... when we first got dragged to that crazy place, all I wanted was to get out of there! Now we finally get back home, here I am saying, You never know, we might go back there some day!"
Wolverine growled. "Things change, kid."
And, indeed, they had changed for him as well. Despite his lingering contempt for the act of forced altruism that he and his comrades had been 'asked' to perform on behalf of DungeonMaster and the Realm, and against his active distaste for the obnoxious and loud-mouthed Cavalier, Wolverine knew that it would be a long time before he was able to look back upon the adventure with anything less than deep regret. He had revelled in the thrill of that classic struggle between Good and Evil, he had enjoyed taking the unfortunate young Magician under his wing, moulding his impressionable young mind into the courageous and emotionless individual that he had been upon Logan's reluctant departure. He had loved the freedom of simply *fighting* without the need to contemplate orders or ethics. Yes indeed, things had changed, and Logan's initial disgust at their rude capture had waned significantly since their arrival. Against all odds, he would miss it.
Looking to his companions, he took some comfort in the obvious observation that he would not be alone in this position. It was clear from even the briefest of glances that each of the X-Men had been touched at a very personal level by the adventure, and would miss it. As his eyes passed over each of his comrades in turn, it was evident that each of them had been struck at very different levels, and in very different ways, and these, he knew, whatever they were, would remain within the hearts of the X-Men for many years, even if they never again returned to the Realm.
Cyclops sat and stared thoughtfully at his consoles, a nostalgic smile occasionally crossing his face, quickly checked by his inbred sense of leadership and seriousness; had Wolverine not held his gaze for more than a moment, he would not have noticed it. Logan had observed Scott's quiet conversations with the girl Diana, and, even from the respectful distance he had sustained, he had been perfectly aware of what their discussions had entailed: revelations from one leader to another. Logan knew Cyclops well enough to understand that he would not have allowed his professional charade to falter, even momentarily, yet he had distinctly heard the girl mentioning the words 'loosen up' to the stoic mutant; at the time, Wolverine had simply laughed at the visual image of Scott Summers 'loosening up', but looking back to the half-heard conversations now, and seeing the partially-checked smiles that found their way onto the stoic group leader's face, he wondered if the idea was in fact as preposterous as it had first appeared.
Storm remained by Rogue's side, watching her sleeping friend with obvious distress. Wolverine had seen very little of the elemental mutant after the group had split, and so did not know as much about her experiences as he would have liked. Her eyes, though, were distant and pain-filled as she gazed at Rogue, and her features were tight with sadness. Logan sighed softly; he had witnessed the solemn respect with which Storm had wished farewell to the handsome young Ranger Hank. He did not think for one moment that she had been foolish enough to allow more than a professional relationship to develop, but he knew from experience that even the most businesslike of professional bonds could be excruciatingly painful when they were finally broken. He growled softly to himself as he watched her silent suffering, wishing fervently for some way to ease her pain, but knowing that there was nothing he could do, short of expressing his own regret-and that was something he was not willing to do.
Rogue slept. Logan saw the agony on her features as she writhed in her seat, whimpering softly and crying out as she battled invisible demons; it was she that Wolverine pitied more than any of the others. She alone, he knew, was relieved to be back in the real world, to have no concerns but the violent acts of terrorist humans and rebellious mutants, and she alone, would live in eternal fear of the ever-existing possibility that, one day, they would be forced to return to that place of nightmares. Admittedly, her compassionate defensiveness towards the mouthy Cavalier had angered him, but his contempt and annoyance had died in the instant she had absorbed the Quintessence's power. There had been an enormous question-mark over whether her absorption powers would in fact work against the supernatural being, but she had tried anyway... And she had been punished for that courage, to a depth that even Logan couldn't fully comprehend. And, as she had stated earlier, he knew that it would be a long time before she recovered.
Gambit still stood beside Jubilee, sighing softly and gazing at the top of the girl's head; even the unflappable Cajun, it seemed, had been affected by the adventure. Wolverine smiled slightly; he had noticed the gentleness with which Remy had held the Young One named Sheila, even during the most heartstopping of moments, and he knew--even without having directly witnessed it--that the sly mutant had once again used his innate Cajun 'charm' to woo an unsuspecting lady. He chuckled softly, knowing that, as long as he had Rogue to care for and pursue--and as long as the ordeal didn't kill her--Gambit would recover. He had taken far too many women in his lifetime to allow the young Thief to be anything special. Perhaps the girl, still trapped within the confines of the Realm, would be heartbroken, but Logan knew Remy too well to expect the same from him; one or two shots of liquor would undoubtedly soothe the Cajun's disposition.
Jubilee, on the other hand, appeared genuinely devastated by her separation from the wild little boy. She held the Barbarian's hat in her hands, and was gazing down at it with a deep, tangible sadness. Wolverine growled unhappily, wanting to offer the kid some form of consolation, but knowing that he could not. She too would recover in time, he knew, once she returned to the Mansion and once again became involved in missions and real-world adventures; Wolverine doubted that she would ever forget about the boy--though he could not quite figure out whether their obvious friendship had been anything more--and he could see that she would place the hat on display with the deepest of pride (and Wolverine found himself momentarily wondering what Jean and Chuck would have to say about *that*). She was strong, Logan knew, far too strong to allow a long-distance friendship to spoil her mood for very long.
They would all recover, he mused, returning his attention to his own internal conflicts, as would he. The adventure had been wild, spontaneous, deadly, and had contained parts of every other trait that his primitive nature thrived upon. But now it was over, and he could do nothing but long for the disordered sense of chaos that he had been blessed with for the duration of the surreal journey. He sighed deeply, and turned his gaze to the front window; upon the distant horizon, he was certain he could see the silhouetted outline of Venger's Castle and, as the spectral afterimage faded from his field of vision like the lingering ghost that it was, he suddenly found himself wishing with the same depth of passion that the others displayed so readily, that it had, through some miracle, truly been there, waiting for him to return and destroy the legendary Quintessence of Evil.
"Ten minutes," said Cyclops, head low.
Wolverine clenched his fists, impatiently extending his claws. It was going to be a damned long flight.
*****
Hank sat under a tree and healed. Like the legendary Phoenix, he had risen from the Fires of Hell, cleansed and reborn through the purity of the flames... yet the pain of what he had lost haunted him, as, he knew, they would for the rest of his sorry existence.
He was a failure. He had choked at a vital deciding moment during the most important battle in the entire history of the Realm. He had screwed up, and, had it not been for DungeonMaster, the one individual that he had felt able to attack with all of his pent-up fury, he would have undoubtedly been killed. DungeonMaster. He who had sacrificed himself for his beliefs, for all that was important to him. The one that Hank had seen fit to turn his back on.
The others huddled together a short distance away; Bobby dozed in the dwindling sunshine, his small body completely covered by the bright yellow jacket that Jubilee had given him upon her departure. Sheila stood over her brother's slumbering form, gazing down at him with a beautiful smile upon her lips, one that was tainted with nostalgic sorrow. Eric and Presto sat together, the former leaning on a nearby rock and laughing cruelly at the latter's futile attempts to conjure some non-charred clothes for the melancholy Ranger; for them, it seemed, life had returned all too quickly to normal. As for Diana... Hank smiled and shook his head, looking briefly up at the shadowed figure beside him; she remained by his side, as always, a silent pillar of strength from which he could draw the courage needed to keep going.
His tattered shirt lay on the ground, discarded, and he winced slightly as he inhaled, feeling the starched bandages that Presto had somehow managed to bring forth from his hat straining against his pulsing skin. His burns would heal eventually, but it would be a long time before his emotional wounds did the same. He had made the biggest mistake of his life, and, had it not been for the X-Men and DungeonMaster himself, the Realm would have been doomed.
Tiamat was dead. DungeonMaster was trapped in some bizarre plane of reality, with a creature that was the true personification of all things evil. The Realm had almost been destroyed. They had all nearly been killed.
All because of him.
Since arriving in the Realm, Hank and the others had all made mistakes at some point. Admittedly, some of these mistakes had been rather more significant than others, but still, the fact that he was not unique in his mortal weakness should have offered him some form of consolation. But it didn't. He was their leader, he *should* have been able to handle the unexpected situation, or, at the very least, to pretend that he was not dying inside from the agony of terror. He should have led his friends to victory, *he* and not DungeonMaster. He and his friends had been recruited by the old man--albeit unwillingly--to help in the defence of the Realm, and he had screwed up. Some brave and heroic Ranger.
"Hank," Diana murmured.
He sighed and shook his head, clenching his fists tightly in spite of the pain that it caused to do so. "No. I don't want to hear it. You're going to try and get me to think that what happened *wasn't* my fault. Well, guess what? I don't want to believe that. A *real* leader, the kind of leader that I'll never be, always accepts the blame, no matter what."
"Oh Hank..." she whispered, and her quiet gentleness stabbed at his heart, wounding him at a physical level as he struggled against her soft-spoken words of encouragement. As she reached out, placing a tender hand upon his searing hot shoulder, he felt a wave of emotion rolling through him, so powerful that he was almost unable to hold it back. "Don't do this to yourself. It was a hard situation, a *really* hard situation, and you were scared. Everyone was scared. There's no shame in losing control when you're so scared you can't think straight. It happens to everyone. Even *real* leaders."
He took her hand, pulling it forcefully away from his burned skin. "No it doesn't! You managed to keep together, the damned X-Men held their own against him, even *Presto* didn't break down! Only me. Do you have *any* idea how that feels?" He clenched his fist and resisted the urge to lash out in self-loathing. "I was in charge. I was the one that Bobby and Sheila and DungeonMaster and *everyone* was counting on! I was supposed to be the hero, the one who knew what was going on, the goddamned hero! And what happened? I stopped functioning."
Staggering to his feet, he leaned against the tree, breathing heavily. She sighed wearily and pushed herself gracefully into a standing position. "You're being selfish," she warned. "We've all been through this. You're no different to Eric or Sheila... or Bobby..." At this, she cut off, apparently aware of the sharpness with which Hank felt himself inhaling. Bobby. The poor little boy who had been forced, as a direct result of Hank's carelessness, to witness that which no ten-year-old should ever see. The Ranger hated himself for this, more even than for the cowardice that he had allowed himself to display so freely in front of his companions. *He* had taken away from Bobby that which could never be returned.
"SHUT UP!" he heard himself shouting, and, before he was even aware of the motion, he saw from a sickening distance his own fist, blazing with the fire that still stabbed at his pain receptors, flying towards her face. "Don't you think I *know* that?" His breathing was ragged and laboured, even as he watched her hit the ground in response to his punch; he did not even think to apologise or offer to help her up, so lost was he in his own raging fury. "I *know* that I'm not the only one! Damn it, don't you think I wish I *was*? But the rest of you had no damned PROBLEMS! I'm the strongest, the bravest, the *leader*. I'm the one who should have been standing tall while the rest of you lost control! But I *didn't*! Because of *me*, Bobby has grown up ten years too early! What he lost back there, what *I* took from him, I can never give back! I killed him! I took away everything that was important to him, and you expect me to just throw my hands up and say 'so what?'! Why the hell can't you understand?"
She stood up again, slowly, rubbing the side of her face. "I do," she said very quietly. "But you don't." Without warning, she gripped his shoulders--completely ignoring his screams of pain--and shook him. "We've all been there. All of us. You're nothing special. You're just like the rest of us. A stupid, frightened little kid." Her eyes burned as she shook him harder, and he felt his tenuous grasp on consciousness beginning to falter as the pain in his shoulders escalated to impossible levels. "Bobby will get over it, so why the hell can't you? Why can't you see it? We're all mortal, and we're all useless." And suddenly, as he felt her hold on his flesh loosening, he realised for the first time that she too had been affected by this encounter, that she too had-through his mistake-lost a part of herself that could never again be retrieved. Her defeatism, her sudden, complete, lack of emotion struck him harder than any physical blow could have.
Diana had given up.
As he stared at her, delirious with pain and overwhelmed by all that had happened in such a horribly short time, he found himself thinking back to their earlier conversation, the gentle reassurances that she had offered him, the joking comments they had both made in the time before all of *this* had ever been a concern. And now, all of a sudden, the pressure, the pain, and the sheer weight of his own inadequacies had amplified to an impossible level. It was more than heartbreaking. In such a short time, he had lost everything: his belief in himself, his trust in the once-sacred wisdom of the absent DungeonMaster, and every ethic or moral he had ever accepted.
And then there was Tiamat. She had died because of his miscalculation. His failure.
"Did it make you feel better?" Diana was asking. He blinked, frowning with silent puzzlement. "When you hit me. Did it make you feel any better?" She leaned against the tree, smiling faintly as he paused to contemplate the question. "Because if it did, even a little, I want you to do it again. And again. Until your pain is gone."
Ridiculously, he felt his fist clenching once again, and his body moved of its own accord towards her. But he could not do it. He could not bring himself to strike her again. Because it *hadn't* made him feel better. In fact, after that thoughtless act of unplanned violence, his opinion of himself was far lower now than it had been-assuming, of course, that such was possible. "I..." he broke off, sighing as she began once again to grin. "I can't. You know I can't."
"Why not?" she asked, and he could see by the knowing gleam in her eyes that she had him right where she wanted him. Her own lack of faith remained hidden beneath the surface of her unbreakable facade of strength, for which he was eternally grateful. She smiled, waiting for him to respond to the obviously rhetorical question. "I'll tell you why not. Because it didn't make you feel better at all, did it? You could hit me a thousand times and still feel just as empty inside as you do now, if not even more so." She stepped casually away from the tree, taking his shoulders once more, gently this time, and smiling as he grimaced in pain. "So you've got to ask yourself, Hank: If punching me didn't make you feel any better, if striking down one of your closest friends only made you feel *worse* about yourself, how the hell do you expect to heal if you keep beating up on yourself?" He stared at her, in complete disbelief at the sense that she was making.
He took a breath, consciously aware of the concerned gazes of Sheila, Eric, and Presto as they stopped what they were doing and turned to see what the commotion was about. "I..." he couldn't find the words to express his feelings, so he decided to make light of the situation instead. "You stood there and let yourself get knocked down *just* so you could tell me to stop torturing myself?" He shook his head. "You're a nut case."
"That's what friends are for, Hank," she said quietly. "That's what you've always been there for when we needed someone to knock down. Because when you punch a friend, they'll always come back eventually... if only to tell you that you've been an idiot. But when you do the same to yourself, there's nobody there to tell you that you're being stupid, so you just keep doing it again and again until you completely destroy everything that was important, everything that was *you*." She grinned lopsidedly, and he could already see a bruise beginning to form on her cheek. "Just think about it for a second before you start beating up on yourself again."
He sighed softly, then, because he knew that she was right, he simply turned and walked away, leaving her gazing sadly after him, and the rest of his friends stunned into silence by his unwarranted violence. He kept on walking, not once looking back, until, scant minutes later, the agony of his burns forced him to sit and rest. Only then did he open his eyes--having no recollection of actually closing them--and turn back, gazing at the distant smeared blobs that were his friends, his heavy heart bleeding with the knowledge that things would never again be the same.
DungeonMaster was gone. Venger was no more. Tiamat was dead. Bobby had lost his precious innocence, and Hank had done nothing to protect it. Diana had lost her faith, and Hank had responded to this by punching her. Sheila was weeping; even from this distance, he could hear her desperate cries as she too realised that, all of a sudden, everything had changed.
The return of the X-Men to their fictional world had struck Hank as a devastating blow. They had gone home, and the Young Ones were left to clean up. The X-Men would forget about the adventure they had shared, but Hank and his friends would not be able to. They were left in the aftermath of the battle, in a Realm that had been plunged into chaos. No Good, no Evil. Nothing except Hank, and he no longer had the strength inside to care.
He had not spoken much to his companions since the departure of the X-Men, and so knew little of their emotional states. And, for the first time in his entire life, it did not matter to him. He had seen Sheila fighting back sobs as the handsome Cajun Gambit had been sent back to his world, had observed the covert tears shed by Bobby as his young friend Jubilee left him with nothing but a large yellow jacket to remember her by. He had seen the courageous pain in Presto's eyes as he had bid a fond farewell to his newfound--and, undeniably, somewhat unexpected and inappropriate--guru, the wild mutant Wolverine. He had observed all of this, and much more, but could not find the strength within himself to care about any of it.
Sheila would get over Gambit. Bobby would learn to live without Jubilee. Presto would go on without Wolverine's harsh guidelines. The world would continue, as it always had, and as it always would. So Hank did not care. He simply sat there, alone and unhappy, and waited for the searing agony in his body to fade away to a degree that would allow him to return to his companions. He would offer his deepest apologies for his inexcusable behaviour, without meaning a single word of it, and they would accept his insincere words, knowing that his honesty was as false as his plastic smile. They would lay down to sleep, and awaken the following morning, once again ready to begin their hopeless quest for the way home, and life would go on as per normal.
He too would miss the X-Men. He would miss Storm's gentle compassion and depthless wisdom, would miss young Jubilee's energy and youthful wildness, would even miss watching Gambit's charming advances towards Sheila. But, like Bobby, Sheila, Presto, and all the others, he would get over it. The world would continue spinning, the suns would rise and fall in the same way. The simplistic essence of Life, the Universe, and Everything would continue as if nothing had changed. But it would be a pretence, a falsehood, something to allow the Young Ones a faint glimmer of artificial hope. Fake, dead, and empty. Just like Hank himself.
Sighing, he climbed once more to his feet, squinting across the modest distance he had traversed before being forced to collapse. From this quiet region of solitary contemplation, he could easily see his friends: Bobby still sleeping soundly, Sheila crying softly at the drastic violence of Hank's unwarranted act, Diana standing still and silent exactly where he had left her, Eric and Presto gazing in motionless disbelief at the chaos surrounding them. As he began to limp back to them, he found himself grasping for words to express the necessary apology that he could not--no matter how hard he tried--bring himself to believe in.
They looked up as he returned, gazing at him with varied expressions. Sheila's beautiful eyes were clouded with tears of betrayal and a pain that Hank knew he could not heal. Presto's face was hot with an anger that was so deep and pure that Hank felt momentarily frightened by it; it only took a moment to realise that the Magician's rage was directed at the situation in general, and not at him specifically, although the shock of seeing his mild and quiet friend so transformed struck a chord of emotion deep within the Ranger. Yet another change that he, in his infinite heroism, had been unable to prevent. Eric was shaking his head sadly, eyes void of all feeling and face contorted with the same cold betrayal that pasted itself across Sheila's features. Diana had a proud smile on her lips, and, against the quiet murmurs of the others, took a single step towards the chagrin Ranger, hand outstretched, and eyes containing nothing but sweet forgiveness.
And still, through all of this conflict, all of this clashing hatred and pain and loss and regret, Bobby continued to sleep.
He kept his head down as he mumbled the empty apology, hearing Eric's derisive snort and Presto's disappointed growl. Suddenly, as he flinched in response to their coldness, he realised that *this* was what had let them down. They understood his moment of terror and indecision during the heat of the battle. They had always understood, just as Diana had said. But this, this violence, this selfish rage, *this* had caused them to lose their once-unshakable trust in him. He felt icy tears soothing the burns on his cheeks; once again, he had screwed up. Yet another failure. He could not take it... but he knew that, this time, he *had* to. For their sakes, he had to.
"It's over," Diana was saying softly, moving to his side; her hand was still outstretched, reaching for him in a gesture of unbreakable friendship. "It's all over. Just let it go." He gazed into her eyes, and saw nothingness; for as long as he had known her, she had always had a blazing depth to her eyes that no other could equal... But now it was gone, extinguished forever, thanks to him. She did not believe her own words, and, for reasons that he could only guess at, this made them all the more significant to him. He listened, mesmerised by the sheer emptiness in her eyes and the complete lack of conviction in her speech. "It's all gone. Everything. And it's never going to come back, so you *have* to let it go. Not for us. Not because you want to be a good leader. For yourself. You have to let it go."
He nodded, dumb and cold, and took her hand. In that fragile instant, that eternal moment of pure tactile contact--as he fought once more against the screams of physical pain at the manifestation of his journey through Hell--he felt, for the first time in as long as he could recall, the vital life-essences of courage and certainty beginning finally to flicker once again into existence deep within him.
They were going to be all right.
END