Dunsinane
Act V

by Timesprite

Through the bedroom door, Domino could hear the answering machine down on the conference table switch on. She didn't have a private line here--no one called, anyway.

"Dom? This is Sam... Ah don't know if you're just out when Ah call, or if maybe ya just don't wanna talk at all, but Ah think we should. Call me back? You got the number."

The machine switched off again and she rolled over, dragging the covers around her shoulders. She shouldn't keep ignoring it, but she had to. She wanted to let go and forget about all of it. Laying in the dark, it seemed as if she could distance herself from the pain of being dragged back into the remains of her dead life. The dark could sooth the sting from all those emotions and conflicts being dragged to the surface, and she could pretend that this was where she wanted to be. The darkness would fold the lies into itself, absorb them and weave them into a false reality for her, thick and soft as velvet. In the dark she could pretend that wherever Nathan was--and that raving lunatic they'd met in the desert hadn't been Nathan--he was better off. Maybe he was finally at peace. But she couldn't forget. Every time she closed her eyes she caught that freeze-frame image--that look of utter confusion, vulnerability, and fear that had been on his face the instant before everything had gone to hell. It wouldn't let her go, and her strength was all used up.
There was so much smoke in the room she could see it, hanging in a layer near the ceiling, illuminated faintly by the streetlights that managed to reach the windows from below. She'd long since disconnected the smoke alarm. It was her fucking bedroom, and if she wanted to smoke in it, she would. Anything worth doing was worth doing well, and that included poisoning oneself. Hank would be disgusted with her. Her cigarette crumbled down to the filter and she stretched to cram the butt into an empty bottle. Something in her chest screamed in protest, but she bit her lip and ignored it. The act of breathing in and of itself was painful; this was insignificant.

She wanted to hate Nathan. The bastard couldn't have just died. She thought she could survive, if he were dead. She'd be able to get past it, and then she could leave it behind for good. She wouldn't be obligated to keep up all these bullshit connections that existed just because they'd been partners for twenty years. But he hadn't. He'd lost his mind instead. She wrapped the covers tightly around herself and closed her eyes to dreams of yesterday.

----

The sound was so slight that at first, Domino thought she'd imagined it. A noise following her out of the slithering terror of her nightmares. Her hand rested instinctively on the weapon beneath her pillow as she held her breath and strained to hear around her. She was torn between the urge to check the rest of the building and the one that told her to just close her eyes again when her gaze caught on a patch of darkness that seemed denser than that around it, somehow. She gripped her gun firmly, then inhaled sharply as the darkness stepped out of the full shadow of the armoire. She was dreaming this.

She had the gun out and aimed at him without a conscious thought. "Nathan," she breathed.

He stepped forward again, the light from the window hitting him more fully this time, and something strange crossed his face as he saw the gun in her hand. "Dom..."

She swallowed hard. He was between her and the door. No way out, then. There was nothing but hard pavement below the window. She kept the gun trained on him, clinging white-knuckled to keep her hand from shaking. She'd never been afraid of him, never, but now... Now it was unlikely the gun would do her any good. "You shouldn't have come here," she said, surprised at how calm she sounded. "Xavier's had people keeping an eye on me."

"They didn't see me." The look on his face was at once endearing and frightening. He seemed so confident of himself, but it was a child-like confidence. Then something shifted--he frowned slightly as if something had occurred to him. "It's clean?"

She snorted, feeling vaguely insulted. "Of course it's clean. I did a sweep of the entire place when I came back. There wasn't anything... he's smarter than that." Nathan sat on the edge of the bed and she flinched a little, acutely aware of just how vulnerable--how exposed she was. He could easily hurt her if he wanted to. She wasn't in any shape to put up a fight, though she was trying desperately not to let it show.
She mentally shook herself. She shouldn't be thinking this, not about him. This was Nathan... but it wasn't. He was saner than he'd been in Egypt, but there was still something fundamentally wrong about him.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said quietly, sensing her alarm, though not the full extent of it. "I don't--I wasn't myself. I'm better now--they're quieter. I have them under control."

A lunatic hearing voices. Only these voices were real, not madness. Just maddening. She might have believed him had the look in his eyes not sent shivers along the length of her spine. Her hand ached from gripping the gun so tightly. She released it finally--it was pointless bravado, anyway--flipping the safety back on and tucking it away. She reached for the blankets and drew them around her as if they could provide some sort of defense.

He stood again, pacing the room restlessly. The lack of attention span would have been amusing had it not been so disturbing. "This place is a mess," he muttered almost to himself.

"Nathan."

He looked at her.

"Why are you here?"

He blinked, as if she'd just asked the most obvious question on the planet. "I wanted to see you."

"Why?"

"I missed you, Dom." There was something of his normal self in his voice, and it made a long numb part of her ache. "I had to make sure you were okay."

She shrugged. "I'll be fine."

"Not if you keep doing this." He gestured to the room around them.

"You are not going to lecture me." Out of his mind, and he was still nagging her about her bad habits.

He shook his head, then gave her an earnest look. "Why are you so sad?"

"I'm not," she replied brushing hair back from her face.

"You are. You wouldn't live like this, otherwise."

"What about you?" She countered, stubbornly refusing to continue that line of discussion.

"Me? I'm great." He gave her a lop-sided grin. "I just need more... control."

"You're not fine, Nathan," she growled. "Xavier played with your head... Blaquesmith thinks you need to be 'dealt' with. You mind wiped eighty-three people in Brazil! That is not great!"

He grimaced. "I didn't want to do that. That's why I need more control. I just have to adjust." He walked over and held out his left hand to her. "Look at that. It's dissolving."

And it was. Patches of the T-O had vanished, leaving behind a perfectly normal hand. Not T-O masquerading as skin, or a telepathic trick, but real flesh and blood. She reached out tentatively and put her hand in his. Surprisingly soft--of course, it had been protected from decades of rough work. "That's wonderful, Nate." He closed his fingers around her hand. Not tightly, but she pulled away a little anyway. The look on his face was anguish. She turned away.

"Dom, please..." His hand was on her shoulder, surprisingly cool through the thin cotton of her tee-shirt. "You're warm," he commented, and his hand touched her face this time. She closed her eyes.

"I'm fine," she countered automatically. "I'm just tired," she added, as if that explained it. The contact of his skin on hers had her trembling slightly.

"You should sleep."

'I was, until someone decided to show up unannounced,' she thought. Dimly, she realized he could probably hear every thought. "What about you?" She asked aloud.

"I don't sleep much anymore," he murmured distractedly. The strange distance in his voice and in his eyes was telling her not to fall asleep with him in the building. But she was exhausted, and she couldn't make him go. "You're staying, then?"

"For now. I don't think we should stay here long."

We. There was no 'we,' she thought. There was nothing here but a vague sense of panic and trepidation. He dropped his hand to his side. "I'm not going to hurt you."

No, he wouldn't. But there was no promise that he'd be the man she woke to, either, and that terrified her. "I know," she replied quietly. They were circling each other, unsure of the next move or how it would be received; the situation strained and fragile. It wouldn't work. They would slam themselves into the holes in each others' hearts they used to occupy, but there were no soft edges this time. They were cutting each other to pieces, and couldn't stop.

His hand was on her shoulder again. "It's all right." A lie. It wasn't; she was shaking.

He wanted to touch her. Not like this, not in the detached way his hand rested on her shoulder, but really hold her. A part of him needed to feel connected to her, a piece apart from the him that was drowning in chaos, or the instinct that was screaming that he had to keep moving, there was danger... No, this part knew how soft she would be under his hand, how warm, if he folded her in against his chest. It didn't care that she looked at him with the eyes of a cornered animal, because he could fix her. He knew he could. But not yet. He needed to get her out of here first. His mind raced through the plan it'd formed, and he smiled to himself. He'd known, of course, that they'd be looking for him. Xavier, his sister, Blaquesmith. He also knew that they wouldn't be able to find him. He'd been working on that, making himself invisible to their telepathy. And he could do it, too... so long as his concentration didn't slip. That was the constant threat--that all those billions of minds pressing on the other side of the wall he'd built up while unconscious would become too much, and break it all down before he could plug the leaks. Even now, shielded as he was, he could hear them, whispering from across the globe. All those lives, fascinating and terrifying at the same time.
He took his hand from Domino's shoulder. He could hide her as well, but he wasn't sure she'd be willing to pay the price. Wasn't sure he could avoid it, either. He could feel the ends of their broken psilink tugging, what was torn apart trying desperately to become whole again. Bonded, he thought he could hide her safely. His telepathy was still chancy--he could still hurt people--but he felt instinctively that his powers wouldn't let him hurt himself. And harming Domino through the link would do just that--backlash on his own mind.

"You should get some sleep," he repeated, stepping away from the bed and walking to the windows. He heard her laying down as he looked out on the lights of Hong Kong strung out below them.

----

"We should go."

Domino shoved the hand from her shoulder and pushed herself upright. She felt like death warmed over, but she wasn't about to let it show. "Go? I don't remember agreeing to go anywhere with you, Nathan."

He sat down on the edge of the bed. "Do you really want to stay here? Safe? Where someone's always got an eye on you? Oath, why did you take this ridiculous job? It's not like you."

"It was someplace to go," she shrugged. "It was a worthwhile cause."

"So you could torment yourself more?" It wasn't really a question.

"Yeah, well, you're certainly one to be talking about the evils of masochism. Someone needed to do it. Besides, Xavier pays well, and I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands."

"About that... they're okay?"

"Yeah. Always are," she sighed. "Can't keep those kids down for long." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on drawn up knees. "Nathan, how am I supposed to know I can trust you after what happened?"

His shoulders slumped slightly. "How bad was it?"

"I've been hurt worse," she replied with a shrug.

"Dom, please..."

There was a vaguely haunting look in his eyes. He felt guilty about it, which, she supposed, was something. She sat up and lifted the edge of her top, revealing the long surgical scar.

"I--"

"It wasn't your fault." She tugged the fabric down again and cleared her throat, fighting back an urge to cough. "I don't blame you."

"I didn't mean to. I wasn't really--I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't in control."

"But you are now."

"I've had time to practice. It's not going to happen again."

"That's a promise?"

"Yeah.

She frowned. "Where--" she coughed, then cursed under her breath. "Where do you want us to go?"

"You still have that apartment in New York?"

"Assuming the landlord hasn't screwed me over, yeah... But we can't go back there. The little war cabinet in Westchester will be on us in an instant."

"They won't know we're there. And it won't be for long. I just need to do a few things, and then we'll be gone again." A slight smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. "We'll be right under their noses without them realizing it."

Dom sighed again. None of this was resting particularly well with her, but if she went with him, she could at least keep an eye on him. She didn't believe for an instant that he was as in control of things as he claimed to be, but then, caution and a sense of self-preservation had never been her strong suits. A part of her was still angry--angry that she was being dragged back into this mess, angry that life couldn't seem to leave her the hell alone. But she was committed now, for better or worse. "All right."

"Good." He grinned at her like a little boy, and something inside her cringed at the incongruity of that look. "Pack a bag. I'll take care of transportation."

----

"Shit." A strong arm caught her around the waist as she toppled forward, coughing uncontrollably, her head feeling like she'd just taken a spin on an out of control amusement ride.

"I should have warned you."

"Would--have been nice," she retorted, trying to get her breath. The room around them was dark and cold, looked--even smelt--abandoned. She hadn't used the apartment in awhile, and even then, it was often only a stopover. Nathan was still holding her--one arm around her waist--against his hip. She hung there limply, waiting for her head to stop pounding, wanting to pull away from him and the almost electric current his nearness caused. "I'm never doing that again." She pulled herself free, breaking the connection between them. His expression flickered for a moment at the loss of contact, but she ignored it.

"You won't have to. Blaquesmith might be able to find a way to track me. We go low-tech from here on."

She nodded, dropping herself into a kitchen chair. "Where are we going to go?"

"I have someplace in mind." He set down the bags he'd been holding in his other hand. "I needed to take care of a few things here, first."

"Blaquesmith again?"

"He equipped most of the safehouses," he replied. "We can't use them, he'd be expecting that. But I want to get a few things. ...and see if I can't hamper things a bit."

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed, and rested her head on the tabletop. There was a thin layer of dust between her skin and the wood. "Christ... how can you stand doing that?" There was the soft sound of his feet on the floor and then his fingers were sliding through her hair softly.

"You're sick."

"I--" She wanted to deny it. Weakness was something you never showed; she'd learned that lesson hard and fast at fifteen, and it had never left. She wanted to argue with him, to fight him just to prove her point.

"It's okay. Go sleep. I have things to do." His lips pressed against the crown of her head.

He was stealing contact when she was too tired to fight him. It wasn't worth it, anyway. Not at this point in time. She'd have to fight the urge to break his arm if he tried it again, though. Just on principle. She hadn't agreed to come with him just so he could paw at her whenever the mood struck him. She stood up, shoving her hair out of her face, and headed in the direction of the small bedroom. "Try not to get anyone killed, okay?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," she heard him murmur before she pulled the door closed behind her. There was nothing but a sheet and two shapeless pillows on the bed, but there was a comforter sitting on the top shelf of the closet. Kicking off her shoes and sliding off her jeans, she wrapped the blanket around herself and turned off the overhead light before lying down.
When she opened her eyes again hours later, it was to the sensation of another body on the mattress beside her. "Who invited you?" She muttered, head still half-buried in the pillow. Her headache was gone, at least.

"I'm behaving myself," Nathan rumbled in reply. He was stretched out next to her, still fully clothed, his head pillowed on his hands. She could smell a faint trace of smoke on him and wondered just what 'taking care of things' had entailed. "There are stars on your ceiling," he commented after a pause.

"Yeah."

"They weren't here the last time."

"I don't remember giving you much opportunity to stare at the ceiling the last time we were here together," she replied wryly.

He studied the ceiling a moment longer. There were a few constellations mapped out haphazardly, probably from memory, and without any attention to their actual placement in the sky. They gave off a faint green light that made his eyes play tricks. "Why'd you put them up?"

He felt her shrug beside him. "I was bored, lonely, it was something to look at. I end up staring at ceilings a lot."

"Name them?"

"What?"

"Did you name them?"

"They already have names."

"Doesn't mean you can't give them new ones."

Domino sighed and propped herself up on one elbow to look over at him. "What were you up to, Nathan?"

"Trouble."

"I gathered that much."

"I didn't kill anyone, if that's what you're asking."

"I wasn't."

He nodded, barely perceptible in the dark. "I just made sure he'll have trouble finding us."

"Meaning you just destroyed his most recent base of operations."

"I'm sure he has backups of all the systems. He's not careless. I needed some equipment. What I didn't need, I got rid of. No point in letting him have access to it."

"You know he thinks it's his duty to take care of you."

He nodded again. "I had a feeling..."

"Rachel--the other Rachel--bound him to it."

"I'm not surprised."

"This doesn't make you angry?"

"I was always... a weapon to them." He turned his head to look at her. "I got used to it, after awhile. I'm not stupid. I would have done the same thing, in their place. So would you."

"We wouldn't use people like that in the first place, Nathan."

"Maybe. Impossible to say." He went back to staring at the stars. "But I'm tired of being used, Dom. How about you?"

----

Domino woke, blinking, winter sun hitting her eyes through battered aluminum blinds and streaking across the bedroom. It was still cold, but she had the blanket around her, and for the first time in ages, it seemed, the iron bands in her chest had loosened just a bit. Well, Nathan had broken her pattern of self neglect, and the time change from Hong Kong to New York had granted her a full extra night's sleep. Her body had probably seized the chance to try and repair itself while it could. It was young and vibrant again, after all, she thought wryly. Too bad the rest of her didn't feel that way. Nathan stepped in as she continued to lay there in a half-waking daze, causing her to wonder if he'd been waiting for her to wake. He walked over silently and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out a cautious hand to touch her face.

"No fever."

"I feel better," she replied, pulling away from him. "All that sleep." She unwound herself from the blanket and found her bag. She stood there, awkwardly, clothes in hand, uneasy suddenly because she didn't want to undress in front of him. It was completely pointless, verging on ridiculous, but after a moment Nathan seemed to sense her hesitation, stood, and brushed a chaste kiss across her forehead before leaving the room.
He was sitting at the ramshackle kitchen table, reading a newspaper he must have acquired while she was still asleep when she emerged from the bedroom in jeans and an old sweater, hair secured in a careless ponytail. "Make the news?" She asked, sitting across from him.

He grinned in a faintly manic way, flipping the page towards her. "Street gangs," he replied, as if it were the most amusing thing he'd heard in ages.

"Well, that's better than the cops having the APB out on a six and a half foot tall mutant terrorist," she replied dryly. "We getting out of here, then?"

"I think... after breakfast."

"We can get breakfast on the way to wherever the hell we're going, Nathan."

He shook his head. "I want to buy you breakfast. A nice breakfast."

"That's great, Nathan," she sighed, "but it's also a really bad idea. They're going to be looking for us."

"They can't find me, Dom." An edge of seriousness entered his voice again, grounding him. "And they don't even know you're with me, yet. They'll figure it out eventually, but not yet." He reached for her hand, and she let him take it reluctantly. "I want to buy you breakfast," he continued with a half-smile. "It's been years."

----

The place he'd chosen was small, tidy, and half-empty mid-morning on a Wednesday. Domino cut her French toast into squares and poked at it pensively--she was only mildly hungry, but Nathan had insisted she order an actual breakfast. He seemed unusually impulsive that morning. It might have worried her had she not been so concerned already.

"I still think this is crazy."

"Pretend it's a vacation. You could use a vacation, couldn't you?"

"I feel like I've been on vacation for years now."

"Couldn't be. You'd look better if you had."

"Bastard."

He frowned. "You... didn't ever really come back, did you? After... you left. Was it that bad?"

She shrugged. "I guess, maybe. I--" She stopped, whatever confession that might have been on her lips lost, her mind folding reflexively in on itself protectively. She shook her head. "So what's the plan, Nathan?"

He set down his fork. "We're driving to Montreal. We'll fly back to Hong Kong... you can pick up anything you want to, make them think you're still in the area, and then we're going someplace Blaquesmith doesn't know about."

She rested her head on her hand. "Do I get to know where this 'someplace' is?"

"Australia. I'll pack the sun block."

"You just want to help me put it on," she retorted, and for an instant, things seemed almost normal. "Seriously, though, that's the plan?"

"Problem?"

"Well, I thought... hell, Nate. I thought maybe you'd want to deal with this instead of hide from it."

His face darkened. "They've made up their minds, Dom. They all think they know what's best, won't be happy until I'm toeing that line again, no matter what that takes."

"That's a little harsh, don't you think? I mean, I know they're all clamoring to have their say, but they still care."

"Rachel, maybe. Scott and Jean... but Blaquesmith? Xavier? They still think this is about power, and the chance to control it. Free will doesn't factor into it."

"Nate, you don't..."

"I do. You know it, too. Oh, I don't doubt that they genuinely want to help me, but it would be on their terms. And I'm so tired of owing people things, Dom. I thought I owed the whole flonqing world my life. All I want now is to be left alone."

"And for that, you need me?"

He tipped his head and smiled slightly. "I've always needed you, Dom. You make the world make sense again."

She wanted to scream in frustration. He was jumping from disturbingly distracted to downright menacing at the drop of a hat, and now he was using the tone he'd always taken when he needed to worm his way back into her good graces for some reason. At this point she couldn't tell if he was just insane or if he was manipulating her. "Just what the hell are you expecting out of me, Nate?" She snapped, suddenly irritated with him. It was the puppy-dog look... had to be. If she didn't get pissed with him, she'd end up trusting him far more than she should.

The playful look evaporated from his face. "Nothing. You don't have to do anything, Dom. I just thought you could use some time away."

"With you," she replied tersely.

He shrugged. "With someone. You don't do well on your own--and don't. You want to argue that, but don't. Not wanting to be alone isn't a bad thing. It doesn't make you dependent."

"Who says I don't want to be alone?" She snapped, voice pitched low enough that the argument wouldn't catch the attention of other diners.

"You do... you don't say it but..." He ran a hand back through his hair, looking tired suddenly. "Every inch of you is screaming that you need something, Dom. I just want to be here until you decide what it is. Is that so bad?"

"I guess we'll see, won't we?"

----

After breakfast the rented car was packed with the few things she'd brought with her and the equipment Nathan had liberated the night before. He took the wheel, and Domino settled into the passenger seat, forehead against the glass, watching the landscape slip from city to winter countryside as they drove steadily north. There was a hollowness in her echoed by the stark landscape outside. The situation felt somehow fitting given the paths life had chosen to lead them down in the past few years. The part of her that had once secretly hoped they would all come out of it relatively unscathed in the end was long dead, and everything seemed a matter of going through the motions as the world wound slowly to its conclusion.
She glanced at Nathan, his face impassive as he drove, and wished she could find something to say to him. Something untainted by the vitriol she couldn't help but feel towards him. Not that anything that had happened was his fault--if he were guilty of not listening to her, she was just as guilty of being unintelligible. She'd decided, somewhere along the way, that she could only stay if he asked her to. The old pattern had ingrained itself, had become routine, and she couldn't fathom reversing it. Couldn't stand the thought that he might think her weak or demanding. He'd had his own demons to fight as well, and she'd been too selfish, hurt, and confused to care.

So now he'd asked, and she'd come with him again. Because it was what he wanted, because it had been what she'd been waiting for. It wasn't about them anymore, really, they were both too far from the remains of that relationship to try and sort it all out now. It was about habit, more than anything else, and he probably did need her on some level. That was okay--it was a role she was used to, and one that didn't require much thinking on her part. It gave her somewhere to go, and a purpose, as superfluous as it might really be. She needed that, because without it, she was afraid she'd end up examining her actions over the last few years and find them to be borderline suicidal, which wasn't something she was ready or capable of owning up to.

They stopped to eat halfway through the drive, more out of habit than anything--she wasn't hungry and Nathan didn't need the break. Neither of them had really spoken since breakfast. "So you really want to do this--just disappear?" She was picking at her French fries absently, staring out the window at the slushy parking lot.

"Why not? It seemed to work for you."

"Extenuating circumstances," she muttered in reply.

"Do you have some better idea, Dom? Should we maybe just show up on their doorstep? You were there, tell me... you think that's a good idea?"

"No," she hissed. "I just don't think--look, forget it. This is your game. We'll do it your way. I just hope you're right, and that you've got this all as under control as you say you do."

He frowned at her. "Dom, I'm doing the best I can here. I'm trying to..." He stopped and ran a hand over his face. "I built this safe house because it's quiet. Isolated. It'll give me a chance to refine what I've been learning. Finish adjusting. It won't be forever. I just need time."

"You keep coming up with all these qualifiers," she replied. "What's it going to be, Nathan?"

"Are you going to trust me or not?"

"I don't know, Nate. Don't ask me that."

"Fine." He shook his head. "We should get going, anyway."

They settled back into their accustomed positions, and the world resumed its steady flow beyond her window. She could have stayed behind. They were in the middle of nowhere, but someone could have come for her. That would have been the smart thing to do; the safe thing. But safe had never appealed to her and she'd already spent half her life reacting on instinct rather than intellect. It could be a beginning as easily as it could an ending, and despite everything, the unease, the anger, she wanted things to work out. Nathan deserved that much, at least.

"I shouldn't have yelled at you." Nathan's voice rose out of the silence suddenly, like a tidal wave, startling her out of her thoughts.

"I yelled first," she replied. "I'm just being a bitch here, sorry."

He glanced at her, a hint of amusement on his face. "That's anything new?"

She snorted. "Bastard."

"That's not true, and you know it." They lapsed into silence, miles passing before he continued. "Is this the only kind of conversation we can have?"

"What should we talk about?" She asked sullenly, ire rising again. "The weather, maybe? Or should we trade stock tips?"

"You don't like the stock market," he replied easily. "Not your kind of gamble. How long has it been, Dom? Two years?"

"Something like that."

"And we don't have a single thing to say to each other, after all that time?"

"Well," she hunched a little in her seat, defensive. "I suppose. You can go first, then."

"What did they do to you, Dom? I remember you standing there, shoving me away. You said they did something... I don't even know who 'they' are."

Something crumpled in her expression, and for a long moment, he doubted she would respond at all. "You know. I told you," she answered bitterly. "You just weren't interested in listening. What happened to you?"

He smiled thinly at her anger. "I won, didn't you hear?" He replied sardonically. "Big hero."

"You saved your father," she countered. "That's a victory, at least."

His expression darkened as he glanced at her. "Maybe. I'm not sure how much there was left to save. After all that time--" He stopped, turning his eyes back to the road. "Living with an evil like that can change a person."

"I know," she replied tersely. "Remember?"

"You don't know how much I want to erase all that. Stop it from ever happening."

"Could you?"

"Maybe. But doing that won't change now. Won't change us."

She turned back to her own window. "That doesn't make sense."

"It does. I...could change my future, because there was time... and a simple solution." There was irony in his voice. "I only had to kill one man for a completely different reality to precipitate out over two thousand years. Fixing us could never be that simple."

"I wouldn't want you to."

----

"We leave tomorrow morning."

Nathan stood inside the doorway of their Montreal hotel room, watching as she dried her hair. He had left to make arrangements, and she'd stayed behind, standing in the shower, water hitting her full force--hoping it would make her feel something other than a creeping apathy for their current situation--until the scalding stream reddened her skin and rinsed a little of the tension from her shoulders.

"And you've got everything together?" She asked, dropping the towel to the floor.

"Passports, everything. We've done this a thousand times. It's all set."

She nodded once, eyes shadowed with some inward thought.

Her legs were at angles beneath her, thighs covered by the tails of the worn out dress shirt she wore, knees exposed. He couldn't help but watch her. It might have been his shirt, pilfered in the days before their relationship had been torn in two, back when things had been alarmingly close to 'good.'

"Look, Nate..." She started, then trailed off as she caught him staring. He turned his head away slightly, but it was too late. She glared at him, something fierce broken loose behind her eyes. "You wanna fuck me, Nate? Is that it?" Her voice dripped venom. "Well, knock yourself out. I don't care."

Her words slapped him across the face, left him reeling for a moment. Broken, he thought. She always had been, but fractures healed with time and so had she... he had, as well, though the memories seemed distant and fleeting, and he had to tell himself again that he wasn't losing his mind. The confused haze lifted and she was kneeling now in front of him, arms at her sides until she reached up for him, hand pressing on the back of his neck like iron, something he couldn't escape. He lurched forward and felt her lips press against his, an angry, sharp kiss. She couldn't have been more dangerous had she held a gun to his head. "Dom..."

"You said you missed me."

"I did." He put his hand to the side of her face and held it there, eyes closed. "I tried to find you... for a long time. You didn't want to be found."

"No." She pulled away from his hand, and he let it fall. She was angry, but not specifically angry, not angry at him. The emotion was just there radiating from her in waves that pummeled his defenses. She was still so close that he could almost feel her heartbeat pulsing through the space between them. He was suddenly aware how simple it would be to stop it. She'd be dead before she realized what had happened. Something inside him twisted painfully at the thought, and the darkness went skittering off to the corner of his mind as the rest of him protested. He could feel it brooding there malignantly. He was aware of her pulling away--even with his eyes closed, he could tell she'd moved to the far end of the bed. He sighed inwardly and opened his eyes.

Dom was leaning against the headboard, long legs stretched before her, crossed at the ankle. Her hands rested lightly on the bedspread.

"I shouldn't have asked you to do this," he said.

"I know," she replied, "but it's too late now." She closed her eyes, and when they opened again, the anger was gone. She was Dom again, and the monster that bubbled darkly between her thoughts had quieted. She tipped her head slightly and looked at him. "Don't you at least want to lay down? Forget sleep, that would be hypocritical of me... but when was the last time you even rested? I don't believe you're not tired."

He was tired, and his shoulders slumped with the sudden weight of it. He hadn't slept--really slept--since he'd slipped away from Xavier's. Bodysliding took a lot of energy, even for him, but paranoia kept him from rest. His chin swung downward in a defeated sort of nod, and Dom shifted over slightly, making room for him to stretch out on the bed. He could feel the warmth of her next to him, and her fingers lightly brushed through his hair, causing a shiver to run through him once before the sensation became a soothing one. He could feel the tugging of the psilink again, and knew he had to do something about it, but his eyelids felt weighted, and his body was forcing his mind to gear down in a way he had no control over. The feeling of Dom's fingers grew more and more distant as he felt himself drifting away.
He opened his eyes some time later, aware that he must have slept without remembering anything--no dreams, no siren call of the astral plane or the gentle tugging of the time stream, just the soft pressure of darkness and the comforting, quiet hum of humanity that let him know was not alone. Dom stood out, a bright spot against the static, sleeping uneasily beside him. She looked impossibly exposed lying there, and he glanced around for a blanket to cover her. He noticed, not for the first time, that her face was too young. It was more pronounced now, while she slept, dragging him back through time to the first years they'd known each other. It made him feel that she was something he could never, in good conscience, touch again. It should have been easy--they had been apart a long time, not long enough to forget, but long enough that the impulses should have been buried. But they weren't. There was too much violence in her, though, too much anger, and that gave him the push he needed to keep away from her. He knew he was a fool, he shouldn't have gone to her--asked her to accompany him--if he didn't want to deal with all the emotional turmoil it was bound to include, but it was just one more thing piled on a growing and increasingly unstable mountain of burdens.

He seated himself in one of the chairs near the window. There was a tightness in the pit of his stomach, tension from knowing that he was only a half step ahead of disaster, despite the confidence he tried to project. He could only run so long--he just hoped it would be long enough. Time seemed to be something unbearably palpable, and he realized just how precious little he had of it. "Stab their eyes," he muttered under his breath. If only he could tell them--his parents, Xavier, Blaquesmith--how much worse they were making things. He was trying his best not to let his desperation show, but Dom felt it. He could tell by her actions, by her moods. They were feeding off each other in some sort of sick cycle and he was trying like hell to get a hold of it so he could stop it. Outside the window, the sky grayed, then brightened as cold winter sunlight spilled across the sky.

Finally, he got up and went to wake Dom. It was time for them to get moving again.

----

Jean Grey-Summers slid a hand through her hair, and bit back the very juvenile urge to scream in frustration. A part of her wondered when the X-Men had started suspending action in favor of an endless string of bureaucratic meetings. "I suppose I don't see the point in debating this again," she spoke up, reminding herself to keep her irritation in check. She felt as if she were wasting her time--that she and Scott should be out looking for Nathan rather than trying to vie for control. "Haven't we all spent enough time arguing?" They'd been going around in circles for ages it seemed, and no one seemed any closer to moving towards a compromise. And each day, she knew, Nathan was slipping further and further from what help they could offer.

"Dayspring saw fit to destroy my headquarters. I should think that sends a clear message of his intentions."

"Does it?" Scott spoke up. "He's being hunted, and he knows that you are most likely one to facilitate his... discovery, Blaquesmith. It's strong tactical planning to take out points of weakness like that. You said he took some equipment, and destroyed everything else. I would have done the same in his position."

"That does not negate the fact that this is very obviously an aggressive act, Scott. No one was harmed this time, but he has harmed others before, though unintentionally, and he may do it again. Is that a risk you're willing to accept?"

"Of course not, Professor. But I don't like this constant reference to Nathan as some loose cannon out there that needs to be destroyed! If he is a threat to others, then we only have ourselves to blame. We have no right to act as if this was all of his own volition, when we know full well now that it wasn't."

"Scott, if you have a quarrel with me, I suggest we discuss it later, in private. For now, it would be best if we stuck to the matter at hand. If there is anything that the destruction of this base has emphasized, it is that Nathan has made himself, for all intents and purposes, invisible to our methods of detection. I had hoped that Blaquesmith might be able to aid us in finding some way to trace his bodyslide activity, but it seems our luck has run out in that department."

"I'm afraid Nathan must have predicted I might be able to get a fix on the signature--it's a rather unique frequency. There was one hit, presumably when he entered New York, but my equipment wasn't yet calibrated specifically enough to trace before the facility was destroyed. I've rebuilt what I could with other resources, but it has not repeated. I believe he's realized it may be the only way of tracking him that exists."

Scott frowned. "Then we need to go low-tech." He glanced at Xavier. "You have a network in place already. Can we divert some of the manpower? Cover at least major airports? He could telepathically mask his physical appearance as well, but if we're determined to track him down, I don't see any better options open to us."

"Certainly some resources can be diverted to this endeavor. However, I do not want to risk exposing these people, Scott. Their work for me--for us all--depends on their anonymity. This will be strictly observational. If Cable is spotted, I will have them inform us so we can respond immediately. I will not place them in harm's way."

"Of course not," Scott replied dryly. "I want to get the observers in place--perhaps Blaquesmith can provide us with the most likely routes Nathan could use, and we'll continue monitoring for any indication that he's bodysliding again. We should also keep an eye on the news in case something shows up there," he replied wearily. "Cannonball and Domino tracked him through news reports the last time. I can only hope that we won't have to." He rubbed a hand across his forehead, then let it drop absently to his side. "Dismissed."

Outside the conference room, Jean caught her husband by the arm. "Are you all right?"

"I..." He clenched his jaw, then continued. "No, I'm not. I'm just so tired of this..."

"What happened with the Professor..."

Scott shook his head. "No, he was right, Jean. That's an issue for private discussion." He sighed. "I see Sam and Rachel have decided we're no longer worth their time."

Jean frowned. "They're not here, Scott. Didn't you know?"

He ran a hand through his hair and made a pained face. "Do I want to?"

"Sam was becoming concerned about Domino. Apparently, he's been trying to get in touch with her, but she's not responding at all. Charles told him there'd been no activity from the Hong Kong office since she got back. He and Rachel flew out early this morning to check on her."

"Damnit." He punched the wall, then shook his hand, immediately ashamed by the angry outburst. Jean gave him a concerned look, and put her hand on his shoulder. His head dropped for a moment, before he straightened and pulled away. "I'm sorry Jean. This is all just so frustrating. It's like I've lost complete control of my life. I don't know what's going on anymore." Jean reached for him, and he allowed himself to bury his face in her shoulder, taking in the familiar scent of her hair. "I just want everything to make sense again."