A/N: this chapter is written in 3rd person.
Epilogue:
JUNE 2003
EDINBURGH
A solitary figure stood by a small gravestone near the edge of a cemetery. Neil Rosiçky knelt down to place a small bunch of flowers by the grave, then stood once more and searched for the right words.
"I never knew you, Mother," he began. "But you don't have to worry. I'm safe now. Safe from him. He can't hurt anybody any more."
Neil felt a small tear rolling down his cheek, then he turned and walked to the graveyard entrance. There he found Chloe, standing waiting for him.
"Did you find it?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "It was where my granddad said it would be."
"Are you still sad? I can leave you alone for a while, if you like."
"No, it's OK. I'm over it. It's in the past. I'm not letting my past dictate my destiny any more."
Chloe slipped her hand into his, and said, "So what are we going to do now? We've been cleared of those murders, so we can go back to our old lives again."
"I can't do that. I can't live in a world where we're hated for what we are."
"So what do you want to do?"
"I want to educate the world. I want to work to bring humans closer to us."
"You mean you want to go back to the Professor?"
He nodded, "Chris is already on his way there. That's where I want to go. What about you?"
"You're not going anywhere without me," she said. "I can't imagine my life without you. Besides, I'd like to go back and meet all my friends again. We can be happy there, if they'll have us back."
"We can head out tomorrow. There's a morning flight."
They both smiled and put their arms around each other. They drew together. They kissed.
WESTCHESTER, NEW YORK
Chris Garcia took a deep breath and knocked twice on the richly panelled wooden door in front of him. From inside the room he heard a voice call, "Come in."
Pushing open the door, Chris walked uncertainly into Professor Xavier's office.
"Chris! I wondered when I would be seeing you again! What can I do for you?"
Standing uncomfortably in front of the Professor's desk, Chris swallowed and said, "First of all, Professor, I'd like to apologise for my actions when I was last here. I betrayed your trust and endangered my friend's life. It was my idea to use your machine; the others only did what I asked them to. The blame is mine."
"Chris, don't worry about it," said Xavier. "I accept your apology. I understand why you felt the way you did about us. It's in your nature to be suspicious, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's important for people, especially people in our situation, to know exactly who is on their side and who is trying to deceive them."
"Thank you, sir, but I was still out of order. I know I don't deserve a second chance, but I'd like to ask to come back to the school. I learned something important while I was away. I realised why it is that you and your people care about humans the way you do. I'd like to have the chance to learn more."
"You'll have that chance," the Professor assured him. "I know I can trust you this time, Chris. I can sense it in your mind. You're welcome back at any time."
Chris smiled. It wasn't the lazy, sarcastic grin that he usually wore, it was something different, something he scarcely knew, an expression of joy and hope. Hope, because he knew he had a future ahead of him, as an X-Man.
"Um – there is one other thing, Professor."
"What's that?"
"My friend Jacqueline. We lost her after our fight with Neil's father. She was having severe mental problems at the time. There's three separate minds trapped inside her head – one of whom is a psychopath – and the last we saw of her, she wasn't coping well at all. Can you use Cerebro to find her? I desperately want to know if she's all right, sir."
"Ah," said Xavier slowly. "I'm afraid I have some bad news for you…"
MARSEILLES
Henri Cartier looked up irritably from his newspaper when he heard the doorbell ring. Folding the paper, he stood up and walked to the door and opened it. On the doorstep stood a girl in her late teens.
"Oui, qu'est-ce que vous-voulez?" he snapped impatiently.
"Don't you recognise me?" the girl asked in English.
Cartier was fluent in both languages, and replied in English, "No, I don't. Should I?"
The girl narrowed her eyes and stared at him with something that looked very much like hatred, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you don't recognise me. After all, it's been ten years, hasn't it, Father?"
"I am not your father!" he shouted.
She yelled angrily, "You are! I'm the daughter you abandoned ten years ago when you found out I was a mutant! You disowned me and left me in foster care!"
"I have no daughter! Get out of my house!"
Cartier's wife, hearing the raised voices, appeared from the back room.
"Hello, Mother," said Jacqueline.
"It's you, is it?" Yvonne Cartier said coldly. "I thought we asked the social workers not to give you our new address. Why are you here? I suppose you want money, is that it? Well, you can think again. You won't get a centime from us, or anything else for that matter."
"I'm your daughter!"
"No mutant is going to be a daughter of mine. As far as I'm concerned, our child died ten years ago."
Jacqueline felt a tear on her cheek, and said in a voice that shook with both anger and sadness, "Don't you feel anything for me? Not even the slightest bit of love?"
"No," her mother snapped. "Now get out of our house before we call the gendarmes."
"Father…" Jacqueline sobbed.
"I am not your father! I don't know you! I have no daughter! Be gone!"
Something snapped inside her mind, and the tears stopped. Her sorrow was now accompanied by a hard, cold ball of hate. Facing her parents with narrowed eyes, raising her arms, Jacqueline hissed, "I will repay you for what you have done to me."
Cartier moved as if to slam the door in her face, but it was ripped from its hinges and thrown aside. He took an instinctive step backwards, and Jacqueline advanced on him.
"For ten long years," she said. "I've had to live with the consequences of what you did to me. I should have led an ordinary, happy life, but you took that away from me, because you couldn't accept what I was. You destroyed my life, and now I'm going to destroy yours."
With a flick of her hand, she used her power to throw Cartier across the length of the room, where he crashed into the wall.
"Henri!" the woman cried, running over to her husband.
She never got there. Jacqueline jerked her other hand, and her mother was flung to the other side of the room, smashing into the kitchen door. Battered, bruised, and bleeding, both adults looked up at her in shock and fear, terrified of the thing their daughter had become, the thing they had inadvertently made her into. She swept both of her arms to the side, and her parents were thrown into the back wall. At least one of them was dead now; she could no longer sense their mind. With a final dismissive wave of her hand, she hurled them over the length of the room again. This time she could sense nothing. Both of them were dead. The child mind in her head was finally silenced.
Jacqueline turned and left the house, her mind in turmoil, part of her shocked and aghast at what she'd done, while another part gloated and enjoyed the murder of her parents. Jacqueline had gone crazy, unable to cope with the presence of Mindstorm inside her head. The other female telepath's consciousness was still there, taunting, goading, and guiding, driving her further and further away from the kind-hearted, caring girl she had once been.
The flick of a cigarette lighter distracted her attention and Jacqueline looked up.
"What happened?" Pyro asked.
"They got what they deserved."
He smirked, "Good. Come on, they're waiting."
Jacqueline fell into step beside him, and the two them walked down the road to where Magneto and Mystique were standing waiting for their two newest recruits. A brief smile crossed Jacqueline's face as her eyes met those of Magneto. There was a war coming, a war between humans and mutants, and Jacqueline Cartier was going to fight it, in any way she could.
A/N: OK, that's all I want to say. Please review!
