Be My Eyes

by Scribbler

[one shot] Well, it's an 'Impact' aftermath fic, Jim, but not as we know it. Contains an itty bitty bit of language and mild reference to femslash if you want to read it that way.

A/N ~ This fic is the upshot of Evo-withdrawl. Toonami is currently showing new episodes, but when I started writing this there was nothing but repeats on while America was getting Season Four already. Consequently, I haven't seen 'Impact', only read an online synopsis and seen a few clips (Beyond Evolution, where would I be without you?). Even so, I was struck by the last scene, as were many others. Then I was struck again by the number of Rogue POV and Kurt POV fics hanging around ff.net in the wake of it, and I felt the compulsion to write an aftermath for myself. Thus, this is my alternative stab at it. And I know we're working within a Marvel universe here, and I known that Marvel characters very rarely stay actually, truly dead, but for the purposes of this fic Mystique has indeed shuffled loose the mortal coil.

Contains character death (well, obviously) and a very mild reference to femslash/shojo-ai if you want to read it that way. Title taken from song 'The Prayer' as sung by Celine Dion on the Magic Sword: Quest For Camelot soundtrack. I know that song is from a mother's POV to her child, but I think the lyrics work well here, also.

Reviews will be imprinted on helium balloons and used as decorations for my sister's birthday. Please make her day an even happier one by donating them.

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'Be My Eyes' By Scribbler

October 2003

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'I pray you'll be my eyes // And watch her where she goes // And help her to be wise // Help me to let go // Every mother's prayer // Every child knows // Lead her to a place // Guide her with your grace // To a place where she'll be safe.' - Celine Dion; C. Bayer Sager; D. Foster; 'The Prayer'

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She was cold.

That was the first thing to herald her back to consciousness. Intense, biting cold. It prickled her skin, like a light rime of frost was forming at super-speed over her body, and made her itch and want to scratch herself all over. Her bones ached unbearably, right down to their marrow, and she couldn't feel her hands or feet save to know that they were like blocks of ice.

_Where am I?_

Awareness permeated her world with this advent of thought, and she felt her mind coalescing into a more coherent form. Sensation, consciousness, responsiveness - they flowed back into her mind and her muscles alike, and she forced her eyes open with more effort than it should've taken. Her brain tried to tell her such, but was quickly silenced by the signals her eyes then sent it.

All around her, like fumes belched from industrial smokestacks, were plumes of blackish cloud and mist. Rolling hills of it stretched away into the distance - which didn't seem quite so far as usual - and wisps curled in front of her face, obscuring her vision yet further. Everything seemed to be covered in the stuff, and she got the distinct impression that the clouds were somehow... oily beneath their flimsiness.

There was no sky, no sense of space, no... floor?

She glanced down. No, the floor was still very much absent, and her feet dangled uselessly above a swirl of deep black.

She felt a frission of panic that promptly abated when she realised that she was floating where she should have been falling, and immediately her brows pulled together. She'd been the subject of telekinetic attacks before, and this had all the earmarks of a TK exerting force over her - something that instinct roiled at, even as conscious thought struggled to process what the hell was going on.

_Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore._ The line flew to her mind unbidden, and she might have smirked at it had she not been so utterly confused.

Her memories were hazy, but she was sure that this was wrong. She had not been here before. She had been... someplace else.

_Oh, very astute._

She thought back, picturing her previous location in her mind. It had been close, somewhere stuffy, what little air remaining filled with the scent of age and decay... The specifics of how she had come to be unconscious, or how in the world she had been transported from there to here were a mystery - and one she fully intended to figure out. Preferably with much kicking of heads.

Her eyes closed again of their own accord, and she resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose, since she still couldn't feel her fingers and might well have poked herself had she tried. In her rather chequered life she'd found that, when rationality was lost, instinct was the best means of survival. It had removed her from several serious scrapes before, and so she fell back on it now.

Even so, instinct needed more to go on that 'floating unaided above what may or may not be black clouds', and she gave herself over to passivity for just a moment, senses alert for danger but mind incognisant.

Clouds indicated sky, which meant she had to be pretty high up if she was looking down on them. She breathed in, testing the air, but it seemed no thinner than usual. Strangely enough, none of the mist chocked her when she did so, either, and there was no smell to go with them - bad or otherwise.

Experimentally, she tried moving. Her legs made jerky walking motions, not completely responsive to her commands, but she went exactly nowhere. Likewise, when she attempted raising her arms and twisting her torso from side to side. Even turning her head and neck had no effect.

She was stuck.

What's more, she was stuck with no idea of even *how* she was stuck. And that made her - for want of a better word - very mad.

Good instincts usually came in exchange for a bad temper. It was some cruel quirk of the universe, or else a joke amongst the gods of creation. That is to say, cruel for those who got in the path of one who had made such an exchange.

She was no exception to this rule. Her irritability, in fact, was one of her most famous traits; and also one of her greatest weapons - especially against those who already knew to fear her. Her powers were formidable in their own right, but there was a lot to be said for the ability to silence an entire room with a single glance.

Hang on a second...

An idea shaped itself into existence, formed half by instinct, half by her conscious self.

Her power. If she could just take on the form of something other than herself, then maybe she could...

Wings, maybe. Something more adaptable to being airborne than her humanoid form, at any rate. It was worth a shot, and she flexed what parts of her body she could, tensing for the slight discomfort that always accompanied shifting.

"Won't work, I'm afraid."

Startled, she tried to turn at the voice, snarling when she failed to do anything but flail around like a minnow on a fishing line. Hackles raised, her eyes scanned the all-encompassing darkness for signs of who had spoken, and she saw no reason to answer the strange, disembodied remark.

A moment passed. Then another. She said nothing, ceaselessly scrutinizing the clouds for something - anything - that might provide clues as to the identity of the speaker. She was not in the habit of giving adversaries advantages, and speaking to them often did just that. Just look at -

"Not feeling especially talkative today, are we?" the voice tutted from a completely different direction. It was light and fluty, but carried an air of authority that made her blink in surprise. Had it not been for that, she would have thought it belonged to a child.

A growl rose up in the back of her throat. The noise all but made it past her equally serrated teeth, and she bared her fangs like a dog, knowing how it intimidated people. She did not like being toyed with. Not one bit.

However, much to her continued surprise, the voice only laughed. Her neck swivelled, since it had changed position again, and she heard the mutter, "... still hasn't learned. How sad..." It increased in volume for a moment, and said simply, "Would you like me to call you Mystique, or Raven?"

"Who are you?" she demanded, breaking her silence. If this person knew both her code and true names, then who knew what other information about her it possessed? "What have you done to me?"

"Me?" It actually seemed amused at that. "Why, I haven't done anything to you, darling. But if you're referring to your new location, then I'll play news-bearer and tell you that you actually put yourself here."

"You're lying."

A sigh. It came from directly below her feet, but when she looked there was nothing, and nobody there. "Why is it you people always like to do things the hard way? Is it so much to ask for one of you to be just a tad more compliant?" It chuckled, belying its own words. "Then again, I suppose you'd be no fun at all if you didn't fight just a *little*."

There was a sound like rustling paper, and she glanced to her left, then to her right. It travelled rapidly, barely settling in one spot before moving on to another, and after a few moments of this she snapped, "What the hell do you want with me? If this is one of Erik's scams, then I swear, I'll - "

"You like jumping to conclusions, don't you, Raven? No, this is nothing cooked up by old bucket-head. Neither is it anything Charles Xavier has set up for you. And before you even ask, Apocalypse is also a very big no-no. He has enough to contend with right now without you adding yourself to his machinations."

Apocalypse. The name acted like a catalyst to her memory, catapulting images into her brain without delay. She gasped, suddenly remembering. "The tomb. That was... is where I should be."

"Close, but no," the voice told her from somewhere above her head. She didn't even try craning her neck, since she was almost sure it would reveal nothing but more black mist. "In actual fact, you haven't been there for quite some time." It adopted a gentler tone, if only for a second, and asked, "Do you recall what happened in the tomb, Raven?"

"Of course I do. Mesmero betrayed me - betrayed us. He lied to us. Broke our trust."

"Mmm-hmm. Care to elucidate who 'us' is?"

"No," she spat, and meant it.

"Guess I'm playing expositionist, too, then. And so what if it isn't a real word? It should be. Now, let me see... ah yes, you and Rogue, your daughter by adoption, were essentially played for fools by one Mesmero, priest and pawn of En Sabah Nur, a.k.a. The One, a.k.a. Apocalypse, a.k.a. I Really Have Too Many Names. Not that I'm one to talk. Y'know, I was wondering when that old windbag would re-emerge. Five thousand years is really more than enough time to formulate a coherent escape plan, don't you think?"

Raven snarled, as much at herself as the strange speaker. "How do you know so much about Apocalypse?"

"Pushy, aren't we? Rude, too; though I suppose I should expect no less from you. But may I remind you that you're not on your home turf now, Raven? You have no power here, and no leverage over me. I'd advise you to remember that."

Something about the softness of the command made Raven shiver. Not a pleasant sensation to someone who was used to soundly whipping whoever chose to get in her way.

"As for how I know En Sabah Nur," the voice went on nonchalantly, "well, I have watched over him pretty much since he needed a diaper in the desert. Boy, could that kid poop. You *do* know that part of the story, right? The bit about how His Highness was cast out and adopted by a band of lowly nomads?"

"I know the legend," Raven retorted, though her blood had begun to run cold. Only those in the employ of Apocalypse knew that much about him. Or so she'd thought.

"Pity. I like telling stories, and his is certainly an interesting one."

She shook her head. "You can't have seen him as baby. It's impossible."

Another sigh. "Mayhap you wouldn't find it quite so very difficult to believe if I chucked the special effects and showed myself?" the voice said, and she heard it laugh for a second, before the entire world went so dark she couldn't even see her nose in front of her face.

It pressed in so tight around her it was almost palpable, and she felt as though she couldn't breathe. There was an fiery band around each of her lungs, constricting and squeezing the air out of her, and she gasped openly, expending breath she could ill afford.

"Whoops. Sorry about that. Guess I got a bit overzealous. Ah well, no harm done."

Instantly, the pain abated. Her breathing returned to normal, and when she unsqueezed her eyes she was standing on solid ground - still black, but firmer, and much more substantial than those flimsy clouds. Instinctively she tapped a heel, simultaneously marvelling that she could and testing to see whether she'd just fall through it. The sound reverberated against walls that weren't really there, since all around her was just a flat, matte black plane set against an equally black backdrop.

"Where the hell am I *now*?"

"Actually, you haven't moved. This is the same place; I just changed the format a little. You like?"

This time she didn't bother suppressing the growl. Patience had never been her forte, and she was done with... whoever this was playing her around. She wanted answers, and she wanted them pronto. "Who. Are. You?"

"Yeesh, you mortals. I don't know why I put up with you. Sure, you were fun for the first thousand years, but you certainly know how to put a damper on things..."

A small blurry shape appeared, peeling itself out of the gloom. She narrowed her eyes, focussing on the whitish blob that came forward at a much faster pace than she would have thought possible had she not both lived with and trained Quicksilver.

After a few moments it formed into a... girl? Boy? To be honest, even with all her life experience behind her, she really couldn't tell. Either way, it was barely an adolescent - all scrawny lines and bony bits hidden beneath baggy, uninteresting clothes. There was nothing to give her any clue as to gender. A mop of dishevelled silver-grey hair fell across a pale, sallow face, and emblazoned across one side was what looked like a tattoo of a red star, the eye marking its centre.

Yet despite this display of paint, it was the eyes, not the mark that held her.

They were angled, giving a catlike expression to their owner, and framed by what could only be kohl of some description. The pupils were striking and dark, and around them the irises shifted colour from second to second. At first they seemed blue, but then, when she looked again, they were red. She blinked, and in that blink they switched to purple, and then umber, and then green. With every passing moment they altered, and by the time she found her tongue again they'd changed more times than she could count.

"Forget who. *What* are you? Are you a mutant? Are you the telekinetic that's holding me here?"

The child only blinked, answering nothing. "My, my, so full of questions. And we haven't even been through introductions, yet." A slow grin spread across the androgynous face. "On the other hand, I've never really been fond of formalities..."

"Stop avoiding my questions and answer me," Raven snapped, visibly bristling.

The hands rose, but the tone remained light. "Fine, fine, but only to speed things along a bit. I'm Dreamscape. Welcome to Dreamscape." It waved at the surrounding nothingness, encapsulating all into the gesture.

Raven arched an eyebrow, flexing her half-numb knuckles. "You like to live dangerously, don't you?"

"It has been known. I created humans, didn't I?"

That had her bouncing backwards. She goggled at the strange creature, and then sniffed disdainfully. "I've heard some spectacular crap in my time, but you *really* take the cake."

"Is it so difficult to believe?"

"In a word; yes."

"Okay then. I see a demonstration is in order." The being clapped its hands, rubbing them together in patent glee. Whatever, and whoever it was, it clearly liked to show off. "What would you like to see? The primordial soup? The invention of the wheel? The Big Bang, perhaps? Now that was quite a party." It shook its head. "Or maybe something on a more personal note, eh? Let's see what I can whip up from your colourful little life - "

"If you're a mutant, then I warn you, no messing with my head!"

"Me, a mutant? Dear me, no. I told you before, darling, I'm Dreamscape."

"Right." Raven didn't believe that for a second. Names aside, this *had* to be a mutant. There was no other explanation for their surroundings and the odd eyes. She grunted. Her skills of conversation had lapsed a little, of late, owing to the fact she had little human contact with which to keep them in shape. Consequently, she found herself reverting to mere noises and pithy insults to make her point. "And I'm the Tooth Fairy."

The being smiled mischievously and waved a hand. "That can be arranged."

Raven felt a faint swish, like a warm breeze against her legs. Automatically she looked down, and very nearly let loose a shriek of rage and indignation. Without any recollection of becoming so, she was now dressed in a sugar-pink tutu, replete with puffy sleeves and plenty of delicate white lace. Her feet had somehow been squeezed into tiny stilettos, and in one hand she clutched a typical 'wand', of the sort bought in toy stores for little girls harbouring fairytale fancies.

The androgynous being cocked its head to one side and smirked, unperturbed be her thunderous expression. "Well, you did say so. Now, are you going to play properly, or would you like me to send you straight off to work? I'm sure there's lots of little kiddies eager for you to come exchange their milk teeth for some petty cash."

It was all Raven could do not to scream and see whether a roundhouse had the same effect in heels. "Change me back, *now*!"

"Why? Personally, I think you look rather fetching in filigree. And the tiara is such a nice touch, don't you think?"

She reached up and felt the crown that had been laced through her hair without her even noticing. Angrily, she tore both it and a few strands out, hurling them away along with the wand. Both vanished into the darkness with not even a clack to indicate they'd landed somewhere. Had she not known better, Raven would have sworn they simply blinked out of existence.

She glowered at the being, grinding her teeth, and it exhaled loudly.

"Oh well, if that's the way you want to do things..."

Another wash of warm air, and her black ensemble returned without her even noticing. For a second she was stunned, but the feeling was quickly replaced by yet more anger and heavy dose of confusion.

"I thought I told you no - "

"Look, I have plenty of other places I could be right now, so I'd appreciate it if you'd just zip the lip and listen," the figure said gently, cutting her off and refolding its arms. "I'll make this simple. Raven Darkholme, you are no longer in the world you knew. You are in Dreamscape, another plane of existence seen by few mortals save those in the process of passing over. I am Dreamscape, creator and maintainer of this place and general which-wayer for departing souls. Got that? Not going too fast for you, am I?"

Raven had a really good comeback for that one, but she was in the process of finding out that her mouth wouldn't work. Neither would her hands to pry it open, for that matter. Nor any other part of her. She was frozen, and could only stare blankly at the small, childlike thing looking up at her with large, baby-blue eyes. She seethed, but was unable to do anything about it. Even her mutant abilities were unresponsive to her commands.

The one called Dreamscape folded its arms. "I'm sure you've heard of me, where you come from. Not to toot my own horn overmuch, but most folk generally have at some point in their lives. Of course, I don't always go by this name, but I find it's easiest up here. Less confusion, you see. You may have come across one of my aliases, though. Death is the one most are familiar with by the time they get this far, though I'm not sure why you mortals make 'Life' a separate entity. It's not exactly a difficult concept to realise that they're the same thing, now, is it? Death become life, and life, death? The circle of life? That little maxim ringing any bells? Come on, you have to have seen the movie."

The eyes swung from jade to yellow, and the star tattoo seemed to burn like a miniature sun. Raven said nothing. She had no choice in the matter. She could only hope that this thing saw the anger blazing in her own eyes.

"You're here," Dreamscape went on blithely, "because you're dead. Deceased. Departed. Finito. Bye-bye. Last orders... that sort of thing. Your death was the result of two things - one a shorthand trigger, the other some rather nasty long-term meddling. You lived your life in as duplicitous a manner as I've ever seen - and believe me, I've seen a lot - and it finally came back to bite you in the proverbial posterior. What's that?" It blinked. "You want to ask a question? Fire away."

Raven gasped as her lips became her own again. "Liar," she spat immediately. "How could I be dead when I'm here? I can still feel my body. I'm still flesh and blood. If you're going to make a cover story, then at least make it a credible one."

"Weren't you listening? 'Here' is Dreamscape." A sigh. "I see some more elucidation is required. Where you come from, you'd probably know it better as Limbo. The reason you can still feel your body is because you haven't passed on, yet. You get to keep it until your destination's decided. Personally, I think you actually got a pretty darn good deal there, considering your previous form was solid stone. Not the most unproblematic thing in the multiverse to work with."

Raven jolted, and Dreamscape raised an eyebrow at her. "Ah, so you remember that part of the equation, do you? The part where you were in old Apocalypse's tomb and touched the pillar to become the third key? What Mesmero didn't tell you, however, was that when your body gave itself up to unlock dear 'Poccy, your ki did no such thing. It remained trapped in the shell that had once been your physical form, and no doubt would have done for all eternity had said shell stayed in one piece. You do know what ki is, don't you?"

Had Raven been able, she would have nodded. She could feel her disbelief hoisting itself higher and higher above her head. Forget suspended, soon she wouldn't even be able to *see* it anymore.

Her head stridently disputed what she was being told, but her gut was doing strange flip-flops that indicated it sensed a grain of truth to the story. This couldn't be Limbo, but then... No, no! There were so many other explanations. There were so many other things for her believe was happening.

But then... why did this one feel so right?

This creature was messing with her mind. That was the only explanation. Forcefully, she threw up every shred of psychic shielding she'd ever learned, even as she heard herself say, "Ki is life force. The stuff of existence. To Western thinking, the soul or spirit."

"Right on the nose. But 'Western thinking'? You really can tell you learned that after an incident with the Hand."

"What?" Another hoist. Her disbelief went a smidge higher. "But how did you... Only that assassin and I knew about that conversation, and he's dead."

"I know. I met him briefly while he was here. There are many things I know about you, Raven. Things that nobody else does." Dreamscape's smile turned sad, and Raven felt her stomach clench at the expression. What sorts of things? What did he - she - it know that it shouldn't?

Another sigh escaped Dreamscape's lips, and it closed its eyes for a short moment. "Look, I can see that you're having trouble believing me, even after what I've told you. It's probably better I just show you the reason you're here. You're mortal, after all, and mortals have a knack of seeing things in a different light after witnessing their own deaths. Then we'll talk some more."

Dreamscape turned, and a small pinprick of light opened up in what seemed to be infinite blackness. Raven watched it, unable to do much else. It grew at an astronomical rate, becoming a sort of portal, through which she could see a hazy, indistinct scene. A grey, cloudy sky that was giving way to evening hove into view, and she would have sworn she could hear the sound of waves lapping against some distant shore.

The scene grew, encircling and absorbing her. Like so much since she'd awoken, she had no power to stop it, and was merely able to observe as she was pulled into the panorama and exposed to a truly horrific sight.

Herself. As a statue.

She wanted to back off, disgusted by the sight. She was twisted, as if away from something, and her expression was one of fury and barely concealed fear. She could almost sense the anger of betrayal seeping off it, drenching the pebbly ground on which the sculpture now stood, and for a brief instant she was back in that cave, watching helplessly as the spell of unlocking crept up her arm and ensnared her.

If there was one thing above all others that Raven despised, it was to feel helpless. That was why she'd worked so hard and mastered her mutant ability to such an advanced degree, even before Magneto's stupid evolving machine. That was why she'd taken the time to learn so many varied kata and fighting styles, as well as the usage of weaponry both ancient and modern. All of it had been so that she may never feel as helpless as she had as a child - a freak amongst norms, inexplicably blue-skinned from birth and subject to her mother's oft-violent whims because of it.

Gradually, as the initial shock of seeing herself petrified faded, Raven became aware of others standing nearby, under the roof of the withered construction in which she now found herself. It might once have been a pretty place - somewhere picturesque for young lovers to meet and woo, overlooking the ocean from the top of a tall cliff. However, now it was old and decayed, and she got the impression that meetings here nowadays were of less than pleasant intent.

She recognised Nightcrawler at once, but the second figure took her a moment longer. She had not expected to see the old witch, Agatha Harkness, out here at night. Actually, she hadn't expected any of this, but the old crone's presence was of particular wonder. Agatha rarely stirred herself for anything less than the extraordinary. It had been a struggle convincing her to come train Scarlet Witch until she'd sensed the girl's power for herself, and her attendance lent the scene a solemn edge.

The pair were deep in conversation, but as Raven mutely watched, they turned. She didn't even try to call out to them, since a tiny voice whispered in her mind that they couldn't hear her. This wasn't really happening. It was just a memory, imprinted on Time to be remembered and relived, but never rewritten, no matter who the onlooker.

She didn't know how or why, but she believed it, too. She was fast beginning to realise that it might not matter what she believed anymore. Events were beyond her control - at least for the moment.

As soon as she had a modicum of control again, however...

"Rogue? Why are you here?" Nightcrawler's question startled her, and she looked again at the macabre scene.

It was odd, seeing her son and daughter together. She honestly couldn't recall a moment of seeing them so when they hadn't been in uniform, or else unaware of the connection between them. The look they shared as Rogue approached was one filled with unanswered feelings she couldn't identify; fleeting, but giving rise to many questions she never would have allowed herself to ask had they known she was there or been able to see her.

How did they get on when she wasn't around? Had learning of her relationship with them both soured what friendship they already had? Did they watch out for each other more than before? Did they talk less, or more? Did they talk about her? Did they talk at all? Did they -

Agatha's voice cut through her slip into sentiment, and Raven shook it off as the witch matter-of-factly said, "She's come to end the torment. Isn't that right, child?"

The question was directed at Rogue, and the girl laid a gloved hand briefly against one of the pillars, her face set in a determined mask. "Yes," was all she said, but so forcefully that Raven was obliged to look again. There was something to that single word; something she couldn't quite define without knowing what had come before it to bring about this strange cliff-top meeting.

Agatha went on, apparently not noticing any of it, or at least not caring. She gestured at the statue. "If your mother *is* alive, only you have the power to save her. Rest your hand against the stone, and absorb the mutation." It was said straightforwardly, but the effect was electric.

Nightcrawler, ever the selfless soul, raised his hands before anyone could do anything. "Hold on now," he said, calling a halt to proceedings and giving a small insight into his side of the sibling divide. "Is that even safe? What if she - "

"A moment is all it will take," Agatha assured him in a voice that was just this side of uninterested. Her eyes, grey and austere as her hair, slid sideways to regard the statue. "It will free Mystique enough to unlock her own powers."

Rogue looked at her hands, an unreadable expression etching her features. "You're serious?" she asked, stepping hesitantly forward. Whatever she had been expecting here, evidently this was not it. "*I'm* the only one that can save her?"

Nightcrawler stepped up behind her, equally hesitant. Again, Raven wondered what had passed between them prior to this meeting. "Rogue," he said, "it's the right thing. You know it is." He sounded like he was trying to convince her; which may not have been such a far cry from the truth as Rogue turned abruptly away.

"No! I... I won't do it." There was a bitter hitch to her voice that stabbed at Raven, and Nightcrawler stepped in front of her as she tried to leave.

"If you don't help her, this will haunt you for the rest of your life." His pale eyes were beseeching, and his tail, so good at declaring his emotions, whipped back and forth in agitation. He was pleading with his sister, and Raven felt yet another stab of something altogether objectionable.

He was pleading for her; even after all she'd done to him. Abandoned, given genes that meant he could never lead a 'normal' life, and then forced to face the fact that his greatest enemy was his closest relative... yet he still wanted to help her now. Nightcrawler - no, Kurt... he was a good person. A decent boy, who would grow up to be a decent man - was already growing into that man, even.

It wasn't an epiphany. Xavier had said long ago that Kurt was honourable, and she'd seen that for herself on more than one occasion. Rather, this just served to remind her of the fact, and she waited with bated breath for Rogue's reply.

Her adoptive daughter had no reason to be so magnanimous. True, Raven had not been a model mother to Kurt for any part of his life outside the incident on the bridge in Bavaria, but she had never used him as she had Rogue; never manipulated him as a pawn for a greater plan. The girl had every right to refuse his request, if she could remember what had been done to her by Mesmero while Raven only looked on...

Kurt, evidently thinking Rogue's silence needed more persuasion, clenched an emphatic, non-threatening fist and said, "*Prove* that you're not like her."

Rogue looked over her shoulder, and Raven allowed herself to think that she seemed a little unsure. And then again, when she chose to return and stand in front of the effigy that had once been her mother instead of walking away.

Perhaps Rogue *did* have it in her to forgive, just like Kurt. Part of Raven was flabbergasted at the notion - had she been in Rogue's place, revenge would have been the only thing on her mind. Another part of her was relieved that her interfering hadn't melded Rogue into such a harsh, unfeeling individual as herself. The former chased away the latter as soon as it reared its head, but the feeling was there, all the same. That much she couldn't deny.

Rogue stared intently at the statue, and tilted her head to one side almost appraisingly. Her eyebrows pulled together into a frown, but the eyes beneath told a different story. They were troubled and uneasy, emotion difficult to read beyond simple confusion. She didn't know what to do, Raven realised, and as Rogue closed her eyes as if in pain, she began to wonder whether her actions had had more of a consequence than she'd originally appreciated.

_Shut up, brain. What do I care if they did? It's of no significance to me..._

Rogue looked down at her hands, at the gloves that encased them. They weren't Raven's fault, as Kurt's fur and tail were, since she and Rogue shared no blood. That was one pain she hadn't caused for her daughter.

Raven shook her head. What was with all this sudden emotion, anyway? It was disagreeable, and not something she enjoyed. She's betrayed too many people, and done too many things in her life to start feeling for them now. Should she start going soft, she'd be flayed alive by those who would otherwise be useful and powerful allies. There was no room for sentimentality in the world in which she lived.

Rogue closed her eyes again, and this time when she opened them, her face had contorted into an expression of nothing less than pure anger. She had reached a decision within herself... and there was no forgiveness there.

Raven could only watch as Rogue uttered a cathartic scream and shoved the statue wildly, hard as she could, as though trying to get it away from herself. It fell against the balustrade. Hard. What else could one expect with stone striking stone?

Yet the statue was made of stronger stuff than the ancient balcony, and the latter gave way with little more than a feeble creak. The statue kept on going, toppling through the gap and over the edge of the cliff.

It took a portion of the ground with it, and Agatha showed as much alarm as she ever did, shuffling backwards and catching hold of a pillar to steady herself. She seemed shocked at Rogue's action, and gasped openly, watching the statue fall unchecked.

Kurt mirrored the intake of breath, and then leaped unthinkingly forward as he was wont to do when acting on pure instinct. There was no refinement or elegance to the action, as he pelted over the lip of the rock face; only impulsive need that shone in his face until he vanished in a pall of smoke and imploding light.

He reappeared from the teleport a little ways down. Whether he hoped to catch the statue or not was unclear - what did he expect he could do against that sort of freefalling weight? - but whatever he had planned, the unthinking nature of his action meant that he was inaccurate in his re-emergence. He was off by only inches, a foot at the very most, but it was enough.

The statue slammed against one of the small ledges that covered the cliff-face, smashing instantly.

"*NO*!" The cry ripped from his lips like it was painful to keep in, and he grabbed at the falling pieces, trying to snatch them out of the air with fumbling fingers.

The majority continued to plummet, bouncing off more outcroppings and protrusions and shattering yet further. Limbs splintered, fingers were crushed, and pieces became fragments, became slivers, became dust, until what was left thumped gracelessly against the beach below, where the tide was coming in.

Kurt was there in an instant, and he gazed at the remains like someone had just kicked his puppy. Even from where she was, Raven could see the look of pain and frustration carved into his face, and he clapped his hands over his head with a noise that was very obviously a bad attempt at holding back tears. Then he was on his knees, crumpled and sobbing so openly it felt as though someone had speared her middle with a very large hunk of wood.

Rogue's reaction was more successful. No tears fell from her eyes, despite the fact that they welled there. She, too, was trying not to cry. Yet it was unclear whether this was because of the statue or the pain she'd caused her brother.

Either way, she didn't stay any longer, turning slowly and vanishing into the gloom to the tune of Agatha's sad, silent gaze. The witch made no attempt to stop her, only looking to the inside of her own eyelids before heading away.

Raven looked on, helpless and choking on something that felt very much like her own stomach. She hadn't expected Rogue to forgive her, but to... to destroy her? Or what remained of her, at any rate. Even after the birch and open-handed slaps of her own mother, Raven had never raised a hand against the woman.

She was floating on empty air, but when her knees gave out it was as though they struck solid floor. Her bones jarred, but she hardly noticed. Something was eating her insides, clawing them to pieces and leaving her to drown in her own blood. She felt terrible, and her breath came in short, sharp gasps that were as much shock as they were physical pain.

"It's difficult, isn't it?"

Raven looked up, and saw with little surprise that Dreamscape was standing beside her on a floor that wasn't really there. The child's arms were folded, colourful gaze divided between the scene and the sobbing woman at its feet.

"This is a dream," Raven said weakly, unconfident in her own words now. There was a touch of madness to her thinking, and it made her eyes widen and her brain trip over itself. This couldn't be true. None of it could. It was too... surreal.

"You know that it's not."

And she did. Heaven help her, but she did. She knew in the same way that she knew the colour of the sky and the wetness of water. She knew in the same way that she knew she hated it.

"Why?" It wasn't the best question in the world; nor was it the most eloquent, but it was all her mouth would form in that strange, detached moment when all she could see and feel and think of was the sight of her own image shattering into a thousand tiny pieces.

Dreamscape raised an eyebrow. "You really have to ask me that?"

Raven dropped her gaze, looking at her own hands just like Rogue had done not a few seconds before. The entire exchange had taken maybe two minutes, but it had changed so much. _So much..._

"No."

She didn't have to ask. She knew that, too.

Dreamscape sighed. "You can see what your meddling's brought about. All the plotting, all the scheming, all the lies and deceit; it was always going to be a double-edged sword. It always is. I won't ask you if it was worth it - your soul tells me enough on that front already - but I *will* ask you this question; are you upset that you're dead, or concerning how you came to be so?"

Raven couldn't answer, and that elicited a sage nod.

"I see."

"Why are you showing me this? Why haven't I just passed on?"

"Because," Dreamscape said with a shrug, as if that were enough explanation on its own. For a second she sounded exactly like the child she appeared to be, and Raven glanced up through narrowed eyes.

"Is this my punishment?"

"You're big on the retribution thing, aren't you? But no, you're not here because I want to torture, torment, bully, or any do any other such malarkey to you. If I went about things that way then I'd be absolutely swamped with souls on my doorstep waiting to be flogged. Just because time's immaterial in Dreamscape doesn't mean I've all eternity to waste reprimanding you mortals like naughty schoolchildren."

"Then why? Why am I here?"

"I told you. Just because."

"That's not an answer."

"It is if you think about it."

Raven's gaze slitted a little more, and though her guts still felt like they were digesting themselves, a frission of her usual anger seeping into her tone. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

Dreamscape breathed deeply, as though inhaling the salty night air. "You lived each day of your life as a lie, didn't you? Even when you were small, you put on the powder, the dark glasses and the long scarf just to go to the store. Nobody likes a kiddiwink with blue skin, eh? I doubt you'd know the truth if it - and please, pardon the expression - jumped up and bit you in the bum. Even so, when you started down the path that led you here, I think you were half expecting something like this to happen. Erik, Sabertooth, Juggernaut, the Hand, Mesmero, Apocalypse - they've all had it out for you in some way or other. It was just a matter of time before something triggered things off. You've been living on a time bomb."

Raven was about to say something cutting, but stopped, considering the words.

Had she suspected this would happen? Had some part of her brain known what manipulating Rogue would ultimately lead to? She was a calculating individual, that much she'd always been clear about - even to herself. So... had she worked out this scenario as a possible outcome when Mesmero originally contacted her? When the breathy voice first spoke to her over the secure line to her apartment that nobody was supposed to know about, had she known where it would lead?

Yet another unanswerable question.

Dreamscape cast its now-yellow eyes down the cliff. "I just don't think you were expecting anybody to mourn for you, were you, Raven?"

"Nobody mourns the double agent," she said flatly. "They regret the loss of information and usefulness, but never the person."

"My, what a depressing outlook. So is your son just crying because he wanted information from you?"

"Probably. I mean, perhaps... I mean..." she stumbled over her own words. Then she snapped, "Look, just leave me alone. I never asked for you to bring me here. I never asked nor wanted to get any special treatment - either from you or from anyone else."

"No. But he did."

That made her look up again, but Dreamscape avoided her eye, forcing her to look to the beach so far below them.

"What?"

A humourless chuckle. "You think I did this out of the kindness of my heart? Come along, Raven dear, I'd hoped to give you more credit than that. I don't even *have* a heart. Technically, I don't even have a body, despite what you see now. No, Raven, I came to you because I was asked to. By him." A hand gestured to the small, dejected figure on the sand, giving rise to a wealth of questions.

"You know Kurt?"

Dreamscape shook its head. "Well, no. Not as such. We have an... understanding; I think you could call it. He shouts at me sometimes. Vents himself, you might say. You know about the concept of karma, don't you? Everything you do in life affects where you go and what you become upon leaving it? Anything conceived and believed in within your world can become a reality in Dreamscape. Anything, provided someone, somewhere believes in it enough. Kurt doesn't know it, but he's notched up quite a bit of good karma. Enough to, say, have a prayer answered or wish granted..."

Raven was about to say something to that, but paused and blinked. Quicker than her brain could properly register, they'd moved location and Dreamscape had vanished. Instead of hovering next to the dilapidated lookout, she found herself confronted by her own stone remains and the bleak view of a secluded shoreline at night. Waves lapped indolently around the chunks, already half sunk into the wet sand; and over the sound she could hear a low voice murmuring.

Kurt was still on his knees in a position that could not possibly have been comfortable, even for him. Had she not been able to hear him, she probably wouldn't have known he was talking at all, since his mouth didn't appear to be moving. In his hands was something small and brown, and he barely moved against the stiff breeze blowing in off the breakers.

"Go closer," said Dreamscape's disembodied voice, and before she could protest she was by her son's side.

He gave no indication he was aware of her presence, and in the second that she fumbled for her bearings - because, after all, humans like her had never been made for instantaneous travel - she found herself listening to his muttered words.

"Gott im Himmel," he said in quick, hushed German, "bitte beurteilen Sie nicht meine Schwester zu rauh. Oder meine Mutter. Sie sind nicht schlechte Leute. Sie sind... sie sind nur menschlich gerecht. Sie stellten sie nie her, um vollkommen zu sein, und ich... ich...[1]" His tears came thicker, faster, and he broke off to wipe his nose inelegantly on his sleeve. "Ach, who am I kidding?" he asked the empty air, reverting to English instead of his native tongue.

It was so atypical that Raven almost thought he was talking to her, and almost replied.

Almost.

_He can't hear you,_ she thought to herself, and on impulse reached out to touch him, almost as if her hand were trying to prove to what parts of her mind still doubted that it was indeed true.

She passed right through his shoulder, insubstantial and warithlike, as though part of a special effect in some poor horror movie. Her outline blurred very faintly in the transition from flesh to flesh, and she shivered even though the air hadn't dropped any further in temperature.

"Why am I wasting my breath pleading with God for them?" Kurt went on, completely oblivious. "Neither of them deserve it."

_My son,_ Raven thought helplessly. She rarely thought of Kurt as her child. He hadn't been so for a very long time, and she'd always had trouble reconciling this young man with the tiny baby she'd lost over the side of the bridge. Kurt's character, his moral fibre, the person he was - it was none of it due to her. He'd been shaped by other people. People far better than his biological mother...

Perhaps that was why she'd tried so hard with Rogue. She'd elected to adopt the little girl once called Marie. It had been a choice she'd consciously made, and worked at when and however much she could. The debts owed to Erik had meant she couldn't raise her alone, but even convincing Irene to take the child in and care for her had been something Raven had had a choice in. She'd had an effect in Rogue's life. She'd been an important factor in a way she'd never been with Kurt until the day he enrolled at Bayville High and once again came under her care - albeit, via a very circuitous route.

But...

Oh yes, she'd had an effect in Rogue's life, all right. She'd messed with her mind enough that her grip on reality was as tenuous as her grip on her temper. She'd used her as a peace offering against an all-powerful mutant deity. She'd manipulated her in order to save her own skin in the inevitable coming conflict.

She'd driven her to murder - or tantamount to it, since her own body had already been gone.

She was no mother. Mothers didn't do that to their children. Kids had been known to legally divorce their parents for less than she'd put these two through. Kids had been driven to do terrible, horrible things in the face of what their own flesh and blood had made them do.

Like killing...

_Shit._ As graceless and blunt as any thought of hers was ever likely to be, it was one of the most honest she'd ever experienced. That single curse, though never making it as far as her mouth, embodied all the emotion she'd felt in the past few minutes. _Shit, shit, shit... what've I done?_

Kurt sniffed loudly, staring into space. There were a few stars out, speckling the encroaching night. For several long minutes there was no sound but the gentle touch of the waves, and even they seemed muted.

_My son,_ Raven thought again, testing out the title. That was twice now she'd referred to him by that moniker. Twice more than she'd ever got around to calling him while she'd still been alive.

Even in her Risty persona, she'd never gone out of her way to make contact with Kurt. He'd been there, hanging around in the background as she wiggled her way into Rogue's affections, but Raven had never really considered reaching out to him in the same way. She supposed most of her had considered him already lost to Xavier and his do-gooder cause. Someone like Kurt, with his lofty morals and high ideals, was never going to consider switching to her side should the need or choice arise. But Rogue...

Raven had always assumed Rogue did not fit in at the mansion on the hill. Rogue was a loner, a black sheep who didn't like company and didn't like teamwork. She didn't even seem to like people, most of the time. When she'd defected from the Brotherhood to the X-Men, Raven had thought it to be just some passing notion. Even after the whole debacle with Cyclops in the mountains, Rogue was hers - would always be hers. Rogue would not abandon the players she'd been with since arriving in Bayville. She wouldn't just turn her back on the people who'd taken her in and given her a home where she could be accepted for who and what she was. A mutant.

But she had. And to make matters worse, Rogue hadn't even looked back. Not once.

Maybe that was what had made Raven 'borrow' the identity of Risty Wilde. The real Risty Wilde had died when she was only seven months old, and her parents had emigrated from Manchester to New Zealand years ago, when Raven had been living in England herself. The personality had been ripe for her purposes, and with a little infiltration to make sure she had the right paperwork for keeping Kelly and BHS off her back, Raven had been set to reinvent herself as an ersatz teenager and win back her daughter.

Her daughter...

_Shit._

She could weep and wail and ask herself what she'd done to her children until the cows came home, but the facts remained. She'd screwed both of them over for her own ends. And ultimately, those ends had proved worthless. Mesmero had never intended to make good on their deal for glory and immunity, and as for Apocalypse...

"I wish things could have been different." Kurt's soft murmur tugged her back into reality - or whatever form of reality this was.

Raven turned in time to see him drop his head and lift the thing in his hands. Upon closer inspection, it transpired to be half of her own stone face. He'd sought it out amongst the rubble, and was now staring at it like it would spontaneously come back to life if he did so long enough.

"Mother," he said, still in that soft, quiet voice, quite unlike either the fervent muttering or the angry tone of before. "I don't understand how things turned out this way. I don't... I don't get why you did the things you did. We're your children - *were* your children," he corrected hastily. "Why did you push us away? Were we so very disappointing that we were never more than useful commodities to you? If it had been just me, I'd ask whether you even wanted children, but Rogue... you *adopted* her. You had to have wanted her. Or was it all just a lie, right from the very beginning? Was this what you were planning for her from the start?"

He fingered the uneven skin, tracing the path of the eye and nose. "I never understood you. Not once. When you sent me that note all those months ago, I thought I was learning who my mother was. But even after I found out who you were to me, I never actually understood anything about you. Never. I... I know you can't hear me, and if anyone else were eavesdropping right now they'd probably think I was nuts. After all, you're the enemy. You're the reason Apocalypse is causing havoc right now. You're the reason we're in this mess - all of us, not just Rogue and me. Yet here I am, sorry you're gone. I really must be cuckoo. But still... I... ach, I don't know if I can ever truly forgive you for what you've done. But I wish... I wish I knew you better, is all."

Raven's throat constricted, and she felt the unexpected and not altogether likable urge to suddenly throw her arms around Kurt's neck, despite knowing what good it would do.

"Quite a speech," said a voice at her shoulder, and she didn't have to avert her gaze to know that Dreamscape was standing there. He-she-it seemed to like popping in and out unannounced. "Learn anything from it?"

"I learned I'd rather not have heard it. Can I just go now? I'm done with this world and it's done with me - end of story."

Dreamscape reclined back, suspended on what could have been an invisible hammock. "Now there's where you're wrong. This is far from the end of your story, Raven. Didn't you hear me before? Little Kurti here has enough good karma for a whopping great favour courtesy of yours truly. Usually I don't go in for freebies prior to death, but this fellow... well, let's just say he's going to be rather important in the future. He deserves a little something to tide him over in the meantime."

"What do you mean 'important in the future'? What do you have planned for him?" Raven's voice took on an accusatory tone, and Dreamscape wagged a finger at it.

"I don't have anything planned, darling. That's what makes this world so interesting, you see. Choices. Mortals have choices to shape their lives. You made some pretty gigantic ones this time around. Your sprogs are going to be faced with a few of their own to deal with, too. What becomes of them after that is entirely up to which paths they take; but whichever way it goes, you can bet the whole farm that they're both of them going to be pretty crucial in upcoming events."

"You know more than you're telling me."

"Perk of the job, sweetheart. Downfall of it, too. I'm not allowed to tell you specifics, only allude mysteriously and drop a few obscure hints here and there. Don't ask me why I added that clause, because I honestly don't know anymore. It's proving more bother than it's worth most of the time..." Dreamscape exhaled loudly, refocusing back onto the topic at hand. "But anyway, in the here and now we still have some business to conclude."

"What stunt are you going to pull on me now?" Raven demanded, almost beyond the point of caring what reaction her rude manner inspired. "You've told me I'm dead, shown me my death in anally retentive detail, made me feel like something I used to scrape off my shoe by showing me this... this pitiful scene of my children; what next? Am I to learn my actions caused the hole in the ozone, too? Or maybe the decimation of the Panda Bear is my fault? Might as well pull out every negative scenario while you're at it. I'm down, kick me some more."

"And you wonder why your offspring never understood you?" Dreamscape shook its head. "*I'm* having trouble working you out, Raven, and I'm a frikkin' deity. You put on this vicious front every occasion you can, but underneath you're about as mixed up as a person can get. Not that I'm calling you softhearted on the inside. A person could get whiplash trying to tug your heartstrings. But still, you're not all you appear to be on the surface, are you?" It was more a statement than a question.

"You dragged me all the way out here to tell me that?" Raven couldn't keep the waspish edge away, and it crept over her words. "I'm a shapeshifter. That's pretty much part and parcel of my powers. I don't have a life of my own - I borrow, I covet and I steal other peoples'. If you'd wanted me to admit to that then we might as well have stayed in that black place and got it over with before."

"Ah, now we have some actual honesty emerging. Maybe this trip wasn't such a total loss, after all." Dreamscape leaned forward, and pointed. "Ah-ha, now here's the juicy bit. Pay attention."

Raven looked, and saw a tall, shadowy figure loom out of the darkness. For a second her heart leaped. _Rogue...?_ Then it fell again when she realised who was walking sedately towards Kurt.

"Crying won't help things, child."

He jerked around, ostensibly not having heard Agatha's light-footed approach though his grief. Kurt's senses outstripped all but those of Wolverine and his ilk, so it said a lot for his state of mind that Agatha, a mere human, however magickally powerful, could sneak up on him.

He just stared at her for a moment, and then returned his gaze to the effigy in his hands. "It makes me feel better," he said, unemotional.

"Really?" The old woman arched an eyebrow. "Then why are you still here crying over her if you feel so good about all of this?"

"I *don't* feel good about any of this!" Kurt whirled, eyes just on the edge of blazing. "Why would I feel *good* about... about..." He stumbled over his own tongue, and Agatha held up a hand in the pause to silence him completely.

"I understand."

"How could you? Did your sister murder your mother?" Kurt laughed bitterly, going through a range of emotions few people had ever witnessed in him, all in a short space of time. "Perhaps we should start some kind of support group. 'Parents that ruin their kids' lives'. Catchy title, ne? We could invite Scarlet Witch to join. Maybe she'd do the world a favour and just blast us to bits on the first meeting..."

Agatha said nothing, but allowed Kurt to ramble on unchecked as she cast about the debris-littered beach. Her shrewd eyes roved for something, but kept returning to him, showing that she was listening to his every word. Whether he noticed or not was another matter, however. If he did, then he gave no sign of it.

Finally, she stopped and bent in a way that should have made bones as old as hers creak. Carefully, she picked something up and nodded at it. Evidently, she'd found what she was looking for. "Do you hate Mystique?" she asked suddenly, taking advantage of Kurt's need to draw breath.

Kurt flinched at the word, and ceased his ranting long enough to ponder the question. "I don't... I don't think so," he said at last.

"You don't think so?"

"Well, I never liked the things she did, but she... I..." He turned helpless eyes on her. "She was my mother. She gave me life, even if she didn't stick around to share it with me. I... Hatred's such a strong thing..."

"Did you love her?" Agatha changed tack. Her eyes were searching, and she added in a voice that brooked no argument, "Honestly, now."

Raven held her breath, wondering what his answer would be. She could feel Dreamscape's eyes on her, but didn't grace the child-creature with an answering look. She'd known Agatha long enough to know that, when she asked a question, she always got an honest answer. Whether this was due to her magick or her generally imperious air had always been something she herself speculated on. Certainly, whenever talking to the old crone, she'd found herself almost totally unable to lie or tell an untruth.

Kurt seemed to be considering, which she doubted was a good thing. Her throat was starting to hurt when he eventually responded, and the lower part of her brain marvelled about how she could be short of breath when she was dead, and theoretically didn't need to breathe anymore.

"I... I think I loved the idea of her, more than the person," Kurt said, the bare truthfulness in him creating an almost physical ache in Raven's gut. "I always knew I was adopted. It was no secret. When the chance came along to meet my biological mother and learn where I really came from... the temptation was... I mean, I wanted to... but I think I pretty much always kept hold of the childhood picture, you know? The rose-coloured-glasses view of what my real mother was like. I didn't know what to make of Mystique when I learned who she really was. She was so *different* to anything I'd ever imagined, and the things she *did*... For a long time I couldn't believe this woman was my mother. Then I didn't *want* to believe it."

"And now?"

Kurt looked at the half-face, frozen forever into a mask of surprise, hot anger and betrayal. "Mystique is dead," he said, rising to his feet but keeping hold of the fragment. "In no small part, so is my new sister. I don't know what to think, anymore."

"Is that why you tried to save her when she was falling? What did you expect to do? If the statue had hit you, you would have been killed. And it's doubtful Rogue would see *that* as any reason to release her." Agatha's face was neutral, but her tone held an undercurrent of understanding that made Kurt narrow his eyes and tighten his jaw at her.

"I'm leaving now," he said by way of reply.

"The tide's coming in," she reminded him, inclining her head at the remaining pieces of statue.

"I know." With that, he turned on his heel and melted into the shadows like a wraith, not looking back and not stopping. He seemed almost afraid of the place, and left with such speed that he could have given Quicksilver a run for his money - pun intended.

Dreamscape knuckled down beside Raven and propped its chin in its hands. Red eyes, tinged by the hint of purple, regarded her curiously, and she looked away before they could meet her own.

"She's found the other half."

"Who? Agatha? Other half of what?"

Dreamscape snapped pale fingers and Raven was instantly treated to a close-up view of what Agatha had picked up out of the sand. It was the partner to Kurt's memento; her own face, sheared straight down the middle. It was a miracle both halves had made it down the cliff relatively unscathed.

Agatha held it in her hands lightly, fingertips scarcely seeming to brush the surface. There was no warmth to her touch, and she seemed to be simply transporting rather than carrying it, as Kurt had done.

"She's going to take it to Irene," Dreamscape informed Raven, bringing her back to its side with ease. "I guess 'ole Aggy figured the gesture would help ease her pain over your passing."

Raven felt a lump in her throat and hastily forced it down. "Irene is none of your concern," she snapped in a throaty voice.

"Actually, she is. All mortals are. They all eventually pass through Dreamscape, therefore they're all my charges. Irene's no different to you or anyone else in that respect. One day she'll die, and then she'll become - "

"Be that as it may, she has no bearing here or now, so I'll thank you to keep her out of this."

Dreamscape fixed Raven with an odd look; one that made her feel rather uncomfortable. Then it sighed and waved a careless hand, dismissing the topic. "If that's the way you want to play it, Raven, then I suppose I'll have to abide by your wishes."

That elicited a snort. "Like you've been doing that so far."

"Thus far Kurt's wish is the one I've been following. He wanted to understand you better."

"And how is putting *me* through all this supposed to be granting his wish?" Raven demanded fiercely. "He can't even *see* me, much less understand me."

"Have you gained a better understanding of your son?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"A rather straightforward one, I would have thought. Do you know more about him now than you did before? Like... how else to put it...?" Dreamscape spiralled a hand at the wrist. "Do you know what makes him tick more than you did before you shuffled off the mortal coil?"

Raven couldn't resist the urge to glare. It was one of her talents, whatever her form, and Dreamscape abruptly found itself treated to her very best glower. Had Raven still been able to shapeshift, there was no doubt in her mind that she would have slipped into the-thing-with-the-teeth. Sometimes her shifting reflected her psyche that way. It had been one of the worst problems with it upon initial teenage discovery, before she learned proper mastery over her powers.

"Are you seriously asking me that question?"

"I am indeed. Are you going to answer it?"

Raven stood, allowing herself a little psychological height. "I understand him no more and no less than I did before. He is my son. You want specifics? His name is Kurt Wagner - not Darkholme, but Wagner. I gave birth to him, but I never raised him. I fought him in battle, knowing full well who he was to me even if he didn't originally know who *I* was, and I let the charade continue until a meddlesome cripple in a wheelchair prompted me to make contact. I watched over him in school as his principal, and that's about as close as I ever came to touching him since he was six months old. All the understanding I have of him is how good a fighter, how loyal to his team, and how academically challenged he is - exactly what I know about the other X-Men. Probably less, even, after I read over that disk of their new recruits that I stole from Cerebro. There. Are you happy now? I don't know my son. I know my daughter only a little better. They may as well be strangers to me."

"Would you like to know them better?"

"I'm not even going to grace that with a response." She folded her arms and renewed the Glare of Doom. "If you know oh-so-much about me already, then you should have no trouble figuring it out for yourself."

Dreamscape cocked its head to one side and considered her with indigo eyes that were rapidly darkening to black, making them appear almost opaque. For a brief second, Raven wavered, wondering whether the child-creature's psyche was reflected in those eyes the way her own was in her shapeshifting. Black was not a colour generally associated with positive emotions, and the more rational part of her mind poked at the rest of it with a few dozen scenarios that might ensue from pissing off a deity. And yes, damnit, that was the only way she could think to phrase it.

"I'm not angry with you," Dreamscape said lightly, as though reading her thoughts. And perhaps that wasn't such a wild idea, considering. "I'm just curious."

"Curious? You know, for someone who claims to be an all-powerful entity, you sure as hell don't act like it."

"And you would know this." Dreamscape brought its knees up to its thin little chest, floating maybe three feet off the ground. The sight may have shocked other folk, but Raven had been exposed to much more spectacular sights in her life. Not least of which the one in which she was still sitting. Speaking of which...

"Is there a reason we're still out here?" She cut her eyes at the darkness, but it was virtually absolute. The beach was its own little world, cut off from the rest of reality by curtains of murk and shadow. "Even Agatha's gone, now. Or is there something else you want me to see?"

"There is, but not here, and not yet. I need you to answer me first, Raven."

"Why?"

"Because, like I said before, you're mortal. Therefore you are governed by rules and conventions I set in place millennia ago. Specifically, in this instance you're governed by the medium of choice. I can't do anything unless you make a certain decision, thereby giving me inadvertent permission. Such a lovely little clause to add to reality, don't you think? So, would you?"

"Would I what?"

"Don't play dumb, darling; it doesn't suit you. Never did." Dreamscape adopted a tone not unlike that used when speaking to a particularly slow preschooler. "Would you like to know you children better?"

Raven shuffled her feet and sighed, realising there was no escape unless she answered. "Of course," she said truthfully. "More than anything. But it's not possible. Not anymore. I'm dead." It still felt odd acknowledging it, let alone saying it, and she suppressed a shiver.

"What if things here today had happened differently?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me loud and clear, Raven." Dreamscape's eyes flashed gold, sparkling in the midst of silver hair and red-tinted skin. "If there was a chance that things today had happened another way, would you want to change them accordingly?"

"Would I still end up dead?"

"Possibly yes, and possibly no."

Raven's eyes thinned to slits. Her mind performed a few quick calculations, and she arrived at a conclusion those less informed would not have done so fast, if at all. "You're going to tell me this is all to do with alternate realities now, aren't you? That's why you were waffling on about choices, isn't it?"

An eloquent smirk split Dreamscape's face. "See, I told you playing dumb didn't suit you."

Raven chose to ignore the remark, instead folding her arms in front of her chest, reflective. "So... what? You're saying that there's some universe out there where I didn't get smashed to bits on the cliff face?"

"Possibly."

An almost-growl. "I'm not enjoying this game of ring-around-the-frikkin'-rosies, you know."

"I know." Dreamscape uncurled and touched down on the damp sand, hands clasped behind its spine and rocking back on its heels. "So I'll answer you straight. Yes, there are several universes 'out there', as you so fluently put it, in which you survived the encounter today. There are also several in which Kurt didn't bring you to see Agatha, and this scene never took place at all, and yet more whereby you didn't take up Mesmero's offer in the first place and thus escaped all of this completely. Go back a little further, and there are a few in which you never lost your son when he was a baby, too. The multiverse is a confusing place of loose threads and knotted stitches. Not even I can navigate my way through it all without considerable difficulty."

Raven's shoulders slumped. "So why mention it at all if you can't hold up your end of the offer?"

"Because," he-she-it said simply, and with a small shrug. "But just supposing I *could* take you to a universe where you and your children were not estranged from each other like you are here. Would you want to go to it? Bearing in mind that, even if I did take you there, you would be just as much an observer as you are in this one."

Raven considered. "But there'd be a me in that universe? In that reality?"

"Yes."

She bit her lip, hesitated just a moment, and then said, "I'd want to. Go, that is. Even if I couldn't... touch. I'd want to see what things *could* have been like."

"It would be painful," Dreamscape said with quiet seriousness. "However much pleasure you got from seeing what was there, it would be magnified tenfold in your own despair at the universe you yourself have come from. You'd compare the two existences, and most probably condemn yourself for past decisions and bad choices. With that in mind, would you still want to do it?"

Raven took a breath, and said as decisively as she could, "Yes."

Dreamscape said nothing for a second. Then, slowly, a warm smile passed over the waiflike face, and its eyes churned fleetingly into a soft lavender. "Well done, my dear," it said softly, and with a great deal more warmth than she could remember being used before. "You passed."

"Passed?" Raven blinked, a scrap of sudden comprehension finding its way to her brain. "Fuck, was this some sort of test to get into the non-hellish Afterlife?"

Dreamscape shook its head, the enigmatic smile never leaving its face. "No. It was something much more important than that."

"More important than saving my soul?"

"Oh, it was saving your soul, all right. Just not in the way you think." It gestured over its shoulder, smile widening. "Look."



She did. And her mouth dropped open at what she saw.

"Kurt?" The name slipped out before she could stop it.

He hung, motionless in the guise of sleep. If sleep could take place in puddles of black cloud floating six feet off the floor, that is. It was as though someone had punched a hole in the very fabric of reality and then laid him in it, and Raven instantly recognised the strange, oily black clouds she had found herself in earlier. Kurt was couched in them, clad in nothing but green pyjamas covered in yellow ducks that clashed horribly with his fur.

The sight of the ducks was so incongruous as to knock her from her momentary stupor, and she turned to Dreamscape with an obvious question written in her eyes.

The child-creature only grinned. "Did I forget to mention that Dreamscape is also known as the astral plain? Or that sleeping spirits venture here in their dreams?" It clucked its tongue and slapped itself on the wrist. "Naughty Dreamscape. How absent-minded of you."

Raven swallowed a lump that had definitely not been there before. "You mean... he saw all of... that?" She didn't add with her mouth what her mind insisted on shouting. Her weakness. Her frailties. Her helplessness. The things she'd kept hidden for all of her long, lonely life...

"Most assuredly. I told you I was answering his wish, didn't I?" The grin turned not a little wicked. "I think Kurt learned a great deal about his mother, don't you?"

"Then all this was... is... just a dream?" The words sounded like they'd been squeezed through too narrow a space, and Raven coughed, deepening her voice in view of it.

"In a sense. But not really," was the cryptic reply. "We never left Dreamscape, Raven. All I did was put you into the scenario Kurt's psyche is replying in his dreams. He has been just as much a powerless spectator as you from the get-go. But all of this that you see around you; it is a memory. I didn't lie on that front. It *was* real. It truly happened. You are still deceased, and he is still alive. Everything you've witnessed, all that you've seen and heard, it took place in your world. Everything I've told you is genuine, right down to the spiel concerning the multiverse."

"Is he watching us right now?"

"Yes. Though he probably won't remember specific details when he wakes up. Dreams are funny that way. Mortal minds aren't advanced enough to retain astral imagery in any comprehensive sense. Most of you lot just aren't ready for the things you can find out here, yet. Those that can... well, let's just say they're a few steps down the right road, but still far from the ultimate destination, and leave it at that, shall we?"

Raven didn't know what to say to that, so she didn't say anything.

Dreamscape looked askance at her, taking in her expression, and then said minimally, "Go to him."

"Excuse me? I'm dead, remember? Unable to affect my surroundings? Your rules, not mine."

"I remember. But this isn't the same Kurt as before that we're dealing with. This is his astral form - his spirit. You can talk directly to him and he'll know you're there, even if he doesn't look like he can. The rules bend a little in cases like this."

"The rules that you created?"

Dreamscape just shrugged and motioned at her with a hand. Raven didn't move, instead regarding the thing that looked so much like Kurt with suspicion.

"Even if that is... some version of him; what am I supposed to say? If he's been watching me all along... If he's seen... I don't know if I could..." She took an involuntary step backwards, away from the drifting image of her son.

Damnit, why was it so difficult to admit her own weakness, even after all of this? Dreamscape already knew it all. It had seen her fall to her knees and get back up again. It had seen her close to tears and tearing herself up over her actions. What shred of dignity did she have left that hadn't already been violated in some basic, fundamental way?

She took another step backwards, and then felt something touch her arm.

The contact was fleeting and light, barely a whisper on her skin, but it seemed to last a lifetime and longer. It made her tingle, but not uncomfortably so. Her innards were collapsing on themselves, decaying away and being reborn into something new and fresh, all at the same time. She was filled with a sense of weightlessness, but her feet were rooted in steel so heavy it was almost unbearable. Inside her mind were sudden explosions, rockets of colour and radiance that ricocheted off the walls of her skull and wiped all cognisant thought away in a second. And in that instant she saw such things... such things...

She heard a newborn crying, and felt an old man's last breath whisper across her face. She felt a small body wriggling in her hands, nuzzling against its mother through her and trying to find an available teat. She saw the green of new plants, spearing up from moist, dark soil, and caught sight of an ancient stone set upright in naked, barren earth. There was writing lovingly inscribed in ancient font, and it was lined with lichen of a deeper, wiser green. The same colour, but so very different...

It spoke to her without words or speech. Death was never very far from life, it said. They were one and the same, but poles apart. They would forever be distant relations set beside each other in the course of the universe. They affected everything and everyone. They were a law unto themselves, and yet they governed all. Nobody could escape them; not ever. It was the way things had always been, and would continue to be until time ran its course and the universe reverted back to less than dust -

Death. Life. The boundary was wafer-thin, and to walk along it was a privilege. A gift...

When the contact ceased, she gasped a breath so deep she was half convinced her toes filled with air. Filling her lungs and exhaling loudly, she only stayed on her feet through sheer force of will.

"Go to him," Dreamscape repeated, withdrawing its hand.

"So that's... what it feels like... to be touched by an immortal?" Raven wheezed, unable to let go of her cynicism in spite of everything.

The child-creature that had presided over creation since its inception simply smiled; a strange smile, filled with unanswered questions and answers nobody would ever be able to comprehend. Its eyes sparked and flickered, changing from blue to white to cerise, before finally settling on pure green, the colour of fresh buds in Spring and rotting mould both.

_Life is never very far from death._

"What about Rogue?"

"You just let me worry about Rogue, darling. I have a couple of things in store for her that I think you'll agree with."

"But - "

"Eesh, I've been watching over humanity for the past few million years or so, Raven. Don't fret. I'll take care of things." A twitch of the shoulder and a careless shrug that was anything but uncaring. "I can't promise she'll be completely all right, but I'll see what I can do to appease all parties concerned, okay?"

For a second Dreamscape's eyes flickered to black, and the pupils seemed to lighten, shimmering briefly to red and highlighted by a luminescent glow leaking across its cheeks. There was something in those eyes that was disturbingly familiar. Likewise, the roguish smirk struck a chord in Raven's memory that made her mouth form a small, surprised circle.

"Oh," was all she could think to say. She glanced at Kurt. "When he wakes... when he leaves this place, will I cross over to... wherever I'm going to cross over to?"

"Maybe. We'll traverse that bridge when we come to it, shall we? Now, go on before he wakens."

And so, for barely the second time in her life, Raven went to talk to her son.

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FINIS

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[1] God in Heaven, please don't judge my sister too harshly. Or my mother. They are not bad people. They are just... they are only human. You never created them to be perfect, and I... I...