Warren POV—Salvation
The all-unpowerful.
That's what she calls herself, because before she was possessed by the Phoenix Force that's what she was. A Rifted child who'd been cheated out of the mutated genes which should have made her an unstoppable fighting force by a cruel disease which killed both her first love and traumatized her so severely that her sclera turned black. Black like her soul. Black like the overpowering emptiness within that caged her ability for negative and very strong emotion, black like the loss of her twin brother.
She calls his name at night, when she's nestled in my arms and wings, when she's asleep and believes me to be in the same state. She calls his name, and sometimes I wonder how her mourning for a boy she scarcely remembers can easily overpower mine for a woman I loved so long. Because it does.
She screams and weeps, when she thinks no one can see her. For her, that is the equivalent of suicidal in an ordinary person, even one so strongly rooted as the Professor.
But no one else knows how much she misses him, because she only cries out in her sleep, and she only weeps to me. No one else. It's comforting. The knowledge that she couldn't let go around partiers like Wisdom and LeBeau, couldn't let herself really feel around even the empathetic.
But I hate feeling her sorrow. Because the Phoenix weeps with her. She wanted so much to feel when she was Jean, and now she knows the full spectrum of human emotion. Where she once knew joy and power and anger, now she knows grief.
Not ordinary grief, like that of a woman mourning after her lover, but that of a human child mourning after its soul-mate. Because that's what I believe twins are. Two halves of the same spirit. And when one is killed, or when they are separated, they feel the emptiness like a yawning abyss of distress.
Unspoken distress. That is what makes it so terrible. It is always unspoken. She doesn't know I hear her, that I hold her down in the night when her sobs might pull her from my grasp should I hold any less tightly. I can't let go. It would be tearing out my heart to let her go, to push her away when she's sleeping and sobbing and dreaming God-knows-what.
The Phoenix speaks to me, she tells me things Chase would never tell me. Because she's afraid to. Sometimes I look into those chill blue eyes of hers and I wonder whether they're iced, like Bobby when he freezes his molecules. Because they're so terrifyingly clear, so terrifyingly cold, so terrifyingly blue. And then, the black surrounds them, reminding me of LeBeau. But LeBeau has devil's eyes. Chase's eyes are pure, unadulterated power.
I remember being afraid of her before the Phoenix Force possessed her. Before she was made the most powerful creature in the cosmos. She was…intimidating. And not because she was a human with those eyes of hers, which were twice as cold before than now, because there was no "Fire and Life Incarnate" glowing behind them. It was because we never knew…we never knew just what she could have been.
We never imagined this.
This is something we're familiar with. We never thought the child without feelings could become the Phoenix. It just never crossed our minds. Essex believed she would become something…amazing. But he never said this would happen. He probably didn't even know. Hell, the man isn't God.
She even calmed him down. She's his life's work, after all. He even blew X-Man off in favor of her, and that was before the whole possession shebang. He hasn't once checked the Summers line again, and he's done everything in his power to protect her. And he can't do anything but look at her and note her progress because she's too powerful.
Nathan always looks smug nowadays. He was one of the only others, besides Betsy, who believed in her. Who believed we shouldn't disregard her potential, even when she was the one saying that she couldn't do a damn thing. He got close to her, when none of us could. She was always shy of everyone else, including Logan, which surprises me because he's usually the one getting protégées, not Nate.
Strange. I used to have feelings for Jean, and now I'm almost completely sure I'm in love with the third Phoenix.
Shit.
I love her.
I'm in love with her.
She's been trying to help me get over Betsy for two years and the second she turns legal I figure my shit out. She's going to be so pissed off at me.
What the hell am I going to do?
I can't angst. She hates it when I do that. God, I want a deck of cards. No, she hates it when I play solitaire, because it's an isolated game. I used to want to be alone, solo, in the dark, but not anymore.
She saved me.
The all-unpowerful.
That's what she calls herself, because before she was possessed by the Phoenix Force that's what she was. A Rifted child who'd been cheated out of the mutated genes which should have made her an unstoppable fighting force by a cruel disease which killed both her first love and traumatized her so severely that her sclera turned black. Black like her soul. Black like the overpowering emptiness within that caged her ability for negative and very strong emotion, black like the loss of her twin brother.
She calls his name at night, when she's nestled in my arms and wings, when she's asleep and believes me to be in the same state. She calls his name, and sometimes I wonder how her mourning for a boy she scarcely remembers can easily overpower mine for a woman I loved so long. Because it does.
She screams and weeps, when she thinks no one can see her. For her, that is the equivalent of suicidal in an ordinary person, even one so strongly rooted as the Professor.
But no one else knows how much she misses him, because she only cries out in her sleep, and she only weeps to me. No one else. It's comforting. The knowledge that she couldn't let go around partiers like Wisdom and LeBeau, couldn't let herself really feel around even the empathetic.
But I hate feeling her sorrow. Because the Phoenix weeps with her. She wanted so much to feel when she was Jean, and now she knows the full spectrum of human emotion. Where she once knew joy and power and anger, now she knows grief.
Not ordinary grief, like that of a woman mourning after her lover, but that of a human child mourning after its soul-mate. Because that's what I believe twins are. Two halves of the same spirit. And when one is killed, or when they are separated, they feel the emptiness like a yawning abyss of distress.
Unspoken distress. That is what makes it so terrible. It is always unspoken. She doesn't know I hear her, that I hold her down in the night when her sobs might pull her from my grasp should I hold any less tightly. I can't let go. It would be tearing out my heart to let her go, to push her away when she's sleeping and sobbing and dreaming God-knows-what.
The Phoenix speaks to me, she tells me things Chase would never tell me. Because she's afraid to. Sometimes I look into those chill blue eyes of hers and I wonder whether they're iced, like Bobby when he freezes his molecules. Because they're so terrifyingly clear, so terrifyingly cold, so terrifyingly blue. And then, the black surrounds them, reminding me of LeBeau. But LeBeau has devil's eyes. Chase's eyes are pure, unadulterated power.
I remember being afraid of her before the Phoenix Force possessed her. Before she was made the most powerful creature in the cosmos. She was…intimidating. And not because she was a human with those eyes of hers, which were twice as cold before than now, because there was no "Fire and Life Incarnate" glowing behind them. It was because we never knew…we never knew just what she could have been.
We never imagined this.
This is something we're familiar with. We never thought the child without feelings could become the Phoenix. It just never crossed our minds. Essex believed she would become something…amazing. But he never said this would happen. He probably didn't even know. Hell, the man isn't God.
She even calmed him down. She's his life's work, after all. He even blew X-Man off in favor of her, and that was before the whole possession shebang. He hasn't once checked the Summers line again, and he's done everything in his power to protect her. And he can't do anything but look at her and note her progress because she's too powerful.
Nathan always looks smug nowadays. He was one of the only others, besides Betsy, who believed in her. Who believed we shouldn't disregard her potential, even when she was the one saying that she couldn't do a damn thing. He got close to her, when none of us could. She was always shy of everyone else, including Logan, which surprises me because he's usually the one getting protégées, not Nate.
Strange. I used to have feelings for Jean, and now I'm almost completely sure I'm in love with the third Phoenix.
Shit.
I love her.
I'm in love with her.
She's been trying to help me get over Betsy for two years and the second she turns legal I figure my shit out. She's going to be so pissed off at me.
What the hell am I going to do?
I can't angst. She hates it when I do that. God, I want a deck of cards. No, she hates it when I play solitaire, because it's an isolated game. I used to want to be alone, solo, in the dark, but not anymore.
She saved me.
