A/N: I love this guy. I really do. Which is why it might seem strange that I torment him so. I archive this at the Marvel category because it probably fits in sometime right after he left Alpha Flight for the last time, before he joined the X-Men.
Fata Morgana presents:
NightmareIt all began when no-one would talk to him anymore. It did not seem like a conscious decision, more like a reflex: Conversations would die as he entered a room, no-one would start one up with him, and every time he made an attempt at a dialogue, it would fall flat. In the end, he avoided them all, only joining the group for meals and work. After a while, he started eating out or in his room, cutting himself off even more.
No-one among his old friends would return his calls. In a way, he could not fault them; he had told lies and half-truths for so long that when they found out the truth, they broke all contact. No-one likes being lied to.
But it was worse with his colleagues. They expected him to be aloof, to feel like he was too good to be with them, so when he started pulling away, no-one even noticed. It was not like they needed him anyway.
Raymonde long dead. No-one to confide in.
Joanne dead. Jeanne-Marie and Aurora somehow making their own way. No-one who needed him.
No-one who spent time with him or even talked to him. No-one who cared about him.
In the end, he asked himself Why not? and could find no answer. He walked downstairs and announced that he was going to shoot himself.
The few who heard what he said, just waved it off. "Yeah, right, whatever" was the general response.
So he walked back to his room and did it. Put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. For a split second, he knew pain, and then he was dead. In a very detatched way, he could feel blood and cerebral matter seeping out of the hole in his skull and into the carpet.
Two days later, the others came around to collect his body. He watched them take it away, while Heather stayed behind for a few moments, muttering about the stains in the carpet.
The sky was cloudy, but it was not raining when they buried him. The others stood there, politely, waiting for it to be over. They all felt that they had to be there, it was their duty, but none of them were really thinking about the life lost.
The priest cleared his throat, and said: "He was alive. Now he's dead. I don't know what else to say. Do any of you...?" They all shook their heads. He shrugged, and went through the usual routine. The others waited until he was done, then walked away, relieved to be done. As they walked away, Walter asked Eugene who he thought would win today's TV-sent match.
Blue eyes snap open. Jean-Paul Beaubier lies very still in bed, trying to calm his erratic breathing, and forcing his fingers to let go of the sheet. He sits up, still trembling, and runs a clammy hand through sweat-drenched raven locks. He swings his legs out of bed and stands, enjoying the feeling of cold floor against his bare feet after having felt himself die. The memory draws another shudder from him, and he leaves the bedroom and enters the kitchen. He pours himself a glass of orange juice and sits down in front of the TV, zapping until he finds a channel which is still sending. They are showing a bad action-movie.
As he dimly registers good old Arnold take off in jet to save his daughter, he tells himself that it was just a horrible dream. None of it really happened. He is alive, and people would care if he died.
Only…he is not completely sure about that. And the question Why not? still hangs in the air, unanswered.
A/N: I love all the Alphans, and I really, really don't think they would react with indifference if someone came and told them he was going to kill himself. Really. But this is a nightmare blowing all things out of proportion.
I do, however, think that Jean-Paul is the kind of person who could have a nightmare like this. And I think I read somewhere that at the beginning of Alpha Flight volume 2, when he is re-introduced, he falls down from the sky into a fishing boat, and tells people that he was trying to fly out of the atmosphere. Since I highly doubt that he could breathe there, that sounds like something of a suicide attempt. This has, as far as I know, never been adressed. If it's true. I don't have that comic myself, so I can't be sure.