Author: Bedlam's Bard
Pairing: S/J, L/J, X/M, O/K
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Major X2 spoilers!! You have been warned!!
Timeline: Takes place between the team leaving Alkali Lake and the final scene in the Professors office.
Disclaimer: Insert your own sarky disclaimer here. They aren't mine but the things they do are. Especially the downright stupid things.
Summary: The remaining four principal members of the team try to come to terms with their sorrows.
Feedback: Yes please! Send anything helpful to absurdissimum@aol.com. Feed the plot bunnies!
Notes: This is my first real attempt at angst and was written this afternoon in the space of a couple of hours. Much kudos goes out to Hal for her kind beta reading and helpful comments along the way.
She was gone.
He couldn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it. He had made a decision; he'd given up his haunting past and chosen to make himself a future instead. And now she was gone and he was standing in the lightly falling rain watching an empty box being covered by dirt.
He stood apart from the others, as separate from their misery as he felt from their lives, as he stared fiercely ahead in disbelieving grief. They'd saved the world yet lost so much. Huddled around the grave the diminished xmen bowed their heads. Storm wrapped her arm about Scott's drooping shoulders and the Professor sat arched over in his chair.
A part of him wished he were able to join them. To find some solace in the comfort of that shared heartache, in knowing that at last he truly wasn't alone. No. No, what Logan really wanted was to lose it all. To put it behind him and runaway as he'd always done before, losing everything in the shattered memories of his past life. He certainly didn't remember going to a funeral before. It was an uncomfortable ordeal and one he hadn't wanted to experience. Yet it seemed the only way to find some final end to it, to say that last goodbye she had denied him when she made her choice. Even if it was only to an empty box.
He'd made a choice to make a future and he wouldn't run from that now. He didn't need to know who he'd been because he knew who she - she had - made him want to be. Whether she would ever see that man or not he would still do everything he could to make her proud.
Standing alone in the gentle rain the Wolverine came to terms with his final decision and swore an oath of life to a handful of dirt on a box.
~
She turned on the wipers even as she used the back of her hand to wipe away unshed tears. The service had been poignant and painful for them all. It was still hard to accept even now after the funeral that it was really over. That her closest friend could have been so easily snatched away.
The sky was growing darker as they neared home and she knew the storm would break; yet it seemed altogether too fitting. In her heart of hearts she knew that her mood was the reason for the darkness of the day. Her sorrow for the increasing rain and her inexplicable rage for the violence of the wind. No one had said anything because they all felt the same.
As she turned into the long gravel drive she thought back to the conversation she'd had with Kurt that morning. He'd been such a comfort to her in the days since they had lost Jean. There were times when she was sure that his quiet strength, his certainty of faith was the only things keeping her together. Unconsciously she reached up to touch the delicate cross and chain he had gifted her with only hours before. It seemed like so long ago now. Her heart swelled with guilty pleasure as she thought how lucky she was to be able to return home and have someone waiting for her. Someone who cared for her.
Cutting the engine Storm turned to glance about the interior or the car at the three drawn faces of her companions and her guiltily heart broke all over again as the first roll of thunder tumbled across the sky.
~
The door closed behind him with an audible click of finality. He'd tried so hard to remain strong, to keep his mental shields up and face the day firmly detached for their sake. But as the service had progressed, as his own pain and regrets had grown it had become ever more difficult to remain aloof from the others grief. Until at last his breast had swollen with such sorrow, his chest constricted and his heart had beat loudly in his ears. Then, with each heartbeat a pounding remonstration of his own incompetence, he had fled it all the way only he could. After that the rest of the afternoon's events had passed in a misty eyed blur.
Now behind closed doors he slumped before his fire and tried to sort through his grief. To shut himself away mentally as he had done physically. But he was exhausted. Recent events had drained him. Had snatched away all that he had held firm within his heart and thrown it away as chaff upon the wind.
For his sorrow ran far deeper than grief and extended much further than a simple betrayal. For the first time in his life Charles Xavier felt his perpetual hope flicker and fade.
The stakes had been raised...he had been a breath away from extinguishing the lives of millions. He had been forced, abused and betrayed. Yet in no way did any of that lessen any fraction of the blame. He did not have Erik's ability to rationalise his innocence. He had no alter ego to hide behind, to escape his own guilty conscience.
Magneto had used him and in doing so the last brittle link to Erik had been severed. That loss hurt almost as much as any other. He had not lost one dear friend, but two to Stryker's machinations. His pride and heart had perished, and between the two the dream had died.
Sitting in his rapidly darkening office, Xaiver stared into the flames of the fire and silently offered up a prayer to any passing deity that he might be able to get that dream back.
~
The day had come and gone. The evening had worn on into the night and still Scott lay unmoving upon their bed. The room was cold and lonely, the empty space beside him eating away at his awareness. His body ached as his heart yearned for even the slightest sense of her presence.
Today he had attended a funeral in which they had buried an empty box in an attempt to say their goodbyes. Yet, it was still an empty box and that meant that somewhere out there she remained. She was dead and he knew that as well as any other member of the team. That didn't mean he could accept it though.
Staring up at the ceiling of their empty, shadowy room he felt a chill race down his spine and a pang of jealousy twist in his gut. Logan. In the days since they had returned to the deserted mansion the two of them had barely exchanged looks, let alone words.
The Professor had said that she had made a choice and he could understand that. She had always been the most beautiful of souls and she would not have baulked at laying down her life for the rest of them. Especially the children. But what he couldn't stand was the not knowing. The terrible, guilty jealousy that was gnawing away at his heart, making him doubt all the precious moments that they'd ever had together.
The not knowing whether she had thought of him as the waters closed in around her. Whether it had been him that she had longed to touch, to kiss one last time or whether it had been that brute Wolverine. He hated him.
Hands clutching at the bare sheets beside him he scrunched his eyes tightly closed and tried to bury himself within his grief. He'd sworn to protect her and now here he lay with her dead elsewhere. He could only think of how much she must hate him, how he hated himself for not doing more. That he should have done more to help her, to save her. But she had shut him off, turned away from him at the last and the only reason he could come up with was because she'd fallen in love with Logan instead.
Laying in the darkness Scott buried his face in her cold pillow as the first tears began to seep out from beneath his glasses. He'd lost his heart to a loner.