Lucky Me
Chapter 92
How can any mother idly stand by and let their child die?
I brushed a few strands of hair behind my ear as I searched across the large field for another person. The field was full of pale yellow and orange flowers that had no end. Their heads were bobbing as the wind stroked their petals. It almost appeared as if they were dancing.
But I wasn't here to be admiring the landscape. I was here because Kerry called out to me. Because we had to save her. Her screams had ripped through my psyche in the middle of the night and from there we boarded the Blackbird to find her.
I had to find her!
The sense of acceptance lingered in my mind after her scream. She was accepting death. Not fighting for her life. Leaving everyone she knew and love to 'sleep' as she put it.
That's way I was in her mind as they, Hank and Daisy, worked meticulously on repairing her body. My job was the keep her conscious and psyche from deteriorating. As I walked aimlessly, turning around in circles, trying desperately to find a sign she was present in this flower field, I felt the dread trying to eat away at my steel resolve.
Tears slipped down my face, even though I was only a mental projection in her mind, the pain I was going through couldn't be ignored.
Cupping my hands around my mouth I started to call her name. Over and over, but there was no response. The sky continued to be a perfect shade of blue, with white shapeless clouds and the flowers danced.
"Where are you?" I whispered. Tears cover my face, my hands cover my tears. I didn't want to have to lose someone else! Not a girl who I'd adopted! Who I considered my own. I couldn't lose another person! Where were you! Why didn't you answer?
Don't die.
"Why are you crying?" My head jerked up to see a small girl standing in front of me. Her black hair was pulled back from her face and held securely by clips. Kerry! Within a breath, my arms wrapped around her slender, child body, and pressed her so close to me that I could feel her fragile heartbeat.
I clung to her for as long as I dared, then pulled her away slowly. Confusion was written clearly on her young features. I cupped her round face in my hands, rubbing my thumbs lightly over her cheeks. Her hands come up and hold each of my wrists, Kerry's green eyes are painful.
A contented mourning.
"Did you lose someone?"
My heart cracked as another bitter cry escaped from my lips. She didn't know! I bite my lower lip and screwed my eyes shut. She didn't even remember!
"Is that why you're crying?" I glanced at her again; the smile she gives me wasn't at all comforting. It reflected her eyes. A depressed joy, one that was felt only when acceptance of a situation had occurred. I wished she wouldn't look at me like that. I didn't want her to accept death! If she didn't fight for her life who else could?
"I am crying because—" I couldn't tell this child the truths of her reality but I had to let her know what was happening. Let her know she couldn't leave!
"I cry when I lose someone." Kerry's voice was full of-of, something I couldn't even describe correctly. The best way to express it would be forgiven pain, a hurt that went so deep it'd sever her in multiple pieces unless someone could stop it. "And I've lost a lot of people. So I cry a lot, too."
Removing my hands from her face, she inspected my left hand intensely. She twisted my wedding band around my finger as if inspecting the ring for defaults or secrets. I stifled back my tears as she turned her attention to my face. With the tips of her fingers she brushed my cheeks softly as if trying to make the wetness disappear.
"You shouldn't worry about me." My heart lurched dangerously close to the edge of a complete breakdown. "You have others to care about." She stepped back, turned, and started to walk away.
"Wait!" I grabbed her shoulder before she could disappear.
Kerry's eyes were always expressive, to see the lack of emotion in them worried and sickened my heart. "Yes?"
"Can't I come with you?" I smiled weakly, trying to reassure her. "I don't want to be out here alone."
Her laugh was hollow as she shook her head in amusement. "This is merely a dream, lady."
No.
I freeze in my thoughts. She didn't think this was real. She had to. I knew I kept saying that Kerry had accepted the fact her death was impending, but she couldn't fight off the dying if she didn't believe she was in real trouble.
"You can go wherever you want to." Kerry bent over, picked up a flower and handed it to me. "This will help. I'll still go with you if you like." She pointed to a few of the petals and explained that each of them have key words to memories. It was strange but what she said next stopped my heart long enough to make my lungs burn from lack of air even in the mental realm. "Go wherever you like. I have no reason to hide anything anymore. I won't be able to tend this garden much longer."
"Oh, Kerry."
She smile was so fake and such a mask of bravery it hurt to look at it. "Where would you like to start? I'd suggest the beginning. It's always the best place to start."
My focus hazed for a moment, long enough to check with Scott on the physical condition of her body.
/They're doing the best they can. You do the same./ Was all he told me and then he left me to fight this alone.
The girl took my hand, and gently tugged. "Come on, I don't have very long before I have to go to sleep."
If she could have said death or anything like that it wouldn't have been so painful.
The flowers faded, the blue sky turned almost black and the wind picked so fast that debris started to nip at my exposed skin. My grip on Kerry's small hand tightened as the wind picked up even more. It felt like a hurricane was forming! Closing my eyes, I turned away from where I could only think it was producing the wind. After a few more seconds passed, and then the wind was dead.
Crickets' chirps took the place of the howling winds and I blinked my eyes back open. It was still dark but there was moonlight pouring through a range of trees. There was a darkened body of water standing to the immediate right of us.
"Where are we?" I ask to the girl by my side who is holding my hand and smiling at the same time.
She made no effort to answer but continues to watch as more appears. Suddenly, on the bank about twenty feet away there was a bright glow that turned into a fire, disembodied laughter that turned into two little girls running around and then a tall man poking the fire.
That must be her father.
"Daddy!" The small girl with black hair wrapped her skinny arms around his neck and smiled. "Can I go swimming?"
"In the morning." He replied gently. The time seemed to speed up considerably, the scenery changes to probably pre-dawn.
A small head poked out of the tent and smiled like a cat. She tipped-toed to the water side.
"Didn't listen back then either?" I asked, slightly amused in an attempt to keep the mode light.
There is a surprising flash from nowhere and when the spots clear, we are suddenly no longer in the forest, but in the middle of a very small hospital hall. A seven year old Kerry stands outside of a door as the soft medical mutterings come from a doctor inside.
Kerry's bangs were shielding her eyes and the longer I watched the more horrified I felt. Her mother, Heather, came charging down the hall in a rage.
"Zach!" In a matter of seconds the woman apparently got the whole story and turned on her daughter. I know it was probably from the stress of whatever was going on, but the stuck her finger in Kerry's face and began to accuse relentlessly. "This is your fault isn't it?"
Zach tried to calm his eccentric wife, but she pushed him off toward Kerry and glared at them both. "You should have watched Darcy better!" Heather's eyes were over flowing with tears of worry and anger. "It's your fault!" She screamed at the pair, ran into the room and slammed the door.
There was a silence that stretched on to forever.
I felt the tears well up in my eyes as an overwhelming guilt started to eat at me.
Her dad touched her shoulder gently and smiled. "She's just upset."
The scene changed again. There was no blurred warning of the transition, no warning just automatic change. I blinked in surprise and Kerry giggled gently at my side. The soft laughter turned into a shriek of pain as the child let go of my hand and hit her knees.
"I-It's coming!" My eyes widened in surprise. I had been concentrating so much on what she was showing me that I had completely forgotten what was happening in the real world. Another soul scream was released as the entire world was plunged into darkness. A pressure developed on my chest and pushed with an enormous strength., causing me to fly backwards and slam into a solid wall of defenses.
Opening my eyes, I realized I was back in the plane. Kerry's mind must have pushed me out when she was feeling threatened. Wearily, I climbed to my feet. "S-Scott?" I am weaker than I originally thought as I stumbled on my own feet. Scott turned around in enough time to prevent me from falling.
"Jean? What's wrong? Are you okay?" He sounds so tired. Of course, he had only been asleep an hour or so before being woken up by my shriek for Kerry. Even though he doesn't always have the best ways of showing his emotions, Scott had been worried sick all day after we discovered Kerry had left.
No one knew where until her cry for help stretched across the astral plane where I was fortunate enough to receive it.
"How is she?" I look at the girl who is lying, pale and unconscious on the medical bed located in the Blackbird. The shocking scenery was too much to take in when we found her. Darcy was in hysterics, Kerry wasn't breathing and the cuts in her wings…they were so deep and there was so many.
Currently Hank and Daisy were working frantically trying to get the girl healed enough to survive the flight. Daisy couldn't do anything for her wings, so concentrated on absorbing the lacerations on her back, neck and arms.
"T-There's too many!" Daisy cried out before falling backwards. Kerry's 'boyfriend' caught her easily.
"Give 'em to me kid." Logan stated, rolling up his sleeve. Daisy looked between people, trying to get confirmation on a yes or no. Scott nodded his consent as did Hank, agreeing without words. Hesitantly, the healer touched Wolverine's arm, the soft glow was the only indication anything was happening.
"How is she inside?" Scott asked, I glanced up from where I was being held in his arms.
I shook my head. I was losing her inside as well and I wasn't sure how to tell them. But when there were tears escaping from the bottom of his visor, I knew I couldn't say anything. I had to try harder. My family was on the line.
"I'm going back in." Before Scott's protest got through our link or out of his throat I had already pushed my way back into Kerry's mind.
At first, there was nothing. Just the darkness which lingered everywhere. My senses groped around, attempting to find an object or something which could chase the darkness away. A dim light began to shine in front of me. It soon stretched and pulled into a silhouette of Kerry as she looked before the attack.
I felt my heart leap for joy at the sight. Perhaps she was fighting it? If she was coming to me in an image of her current self, then she might not be in such a willing state of death. That is what I had hoped until she smiled.
There was nothing to keep hope alive in that smile.
"K-Kerry." I cautiously started to draw closer to her image. When I got a few feet away from her, the black feathers unfurled from her back and reached out to their maximum limit. She was-getting ready to fly. I shook my head, trying to block out the sensation of depression and lose I was feeling.
I wasn't going to let her go without a fight!
"I don't want to leave you with a bad opinion of me, Jean."
"I don't have a bad opinion of you, Kerry." I confess softly, edging closer. Her smile wrecks my heart. "Why don't you show me tomorrow? At home?" I have to give you a reason to fight.
Again, she smiled. "Do you want to know what really happened between George and me?" As she closed her eyes, I saw a soft reflection from tears appear. The mindscape changed again. I could only guess we were in Washington the day George Wilder died.
My stomach lurched; the scene in front of me was Kerry holding a glock to the back of a terrified man's head. Her face was screwed into hate as his was of pure fear. A slight tremor went through Kerry's body in the memory as the image who stood beside me only continued the empty smile.
"At least I'm giving you warning." Her voice echoed around the forest.
Then, in a wink, the man fell limply to the ground.
I thought for a second that I missed something, but upon closer inspection I found that the memory Kerry was just as baffled. S-she didn't kill him! H-he fainted!
"I didn't hurt him." The guide confirmed.
Kerry in the memory still had the gun raised, but pointing off to the side away from her and George. As she backed up, she lost her balance due to a root and went down with a bang. I guess she pulled the trigger by accident when she fell.
I heard another thump off to the side and Kerry cried out.
If my mission wasn't so important I could have laughed. The memory had scampered to her feet and ran to where the thump came from. I watched as she coddled a dead squirrel, tears were already pouring from her eyes.
Then something else happened.
Another gun shot.
I couldn't see who it was, and in the memory, Kerry had seemed equally as alarmed as she dropped the poor creature and stood up. Confusion was on everyone's faces, until Kerry's memory stumbled back to George's body.
I couldn't believe what I saw…there he was, dead.
Someone had shot him at the base of the skull while Kerry's back was turned!
Fear touched my heart as it overwhelmed the memory. In a panic, the girl tucked the gun into the back of her jeans and ran from the scene.
"See?" The guide asked softly. "I didn't do anything but kill a squirrel." There was a depressed type of humor in her voice that chilled me to the bone.
"I'm-sorry, Kerry. For doubting you." I look down at my arms as I wrapped them around myself. I felt partly ashamed for not having enough faith in Kerry to know she would never intentionally hurt anyone. "I guess none of us-"
"Trusted me?" Glancing up at my guide, I noticed the scenery had changed again. Now we were standing in her room at the mansion. The sadness in her eyes only increased as she looked down at the bed in the middle of the darkened room.
Kerry lay in the bed with-her boyfriend's arm wrapped around her waist. The memory's eyes were opened slightly, a small smile on her lips as her bed partner slept quietly. From fear to extreme peace washed over her emotions and mind.
The guide sat down at the base of the bed and shared expressions with her memory's face. I've seen that look many times on different people. She really did care deeply for him, that much was obvious. But, I couldn't help but wonder why the guide started to cry?
"Th-the last words I said to him were so hateful." Tears dripped steadily from the guide's eyes. Her heart sob caused me to step closer but my sudden movement made her jump up and turn away from me. "I-I know you are against us being together. But-he's always been there for me." Kerry turned her saddened eyes to me once more, smiling the shallow smile as she had been before.
Flashes of the past year or so passed all around us. All the instances of him and her being together, comforting one another, talking and other innocent things. The memories only seemed to cause the guide to become even more distraught.
"When you see him next, whenever you get another chance to talk to him….because I don't think I will be able to-talk with him again." My heart throbbed with pain. "Tell him, I'm-sorry."
I opened my mouth to question her but just as before her manner changed fiercely.
From crying and distant to-hugging me. Had this been real, the air in my lungs would have rushed out of me by now. My eyes widened considerably as I slowly started to respond. Kerry was never one to show her emotions so…physically. She would smile and smirk through most of the chaos, but never had she reached out so quickly and passionately before.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into my shoulder.
"F-For what?" My arms slowly started to respond as I held her back gently. "You haven't done anything to apologize for."
She buried her face into my shoulders; the tears must have started again because my shoulder was soon damp where her eyes were located. I-could feel her mind slowly losing its outer realms. My telepathic training allowed me to know when parts of the mind were shutting me off or simply fading away. Nothingness was grasping onto the parts of the mind which weren't needed and selfishly destroying them.
I had to make her fight. I pushed her away, but instead of seeing a teary eyed teenager…there was a skeleton staring back at me with its useless jaw open and it was wearing her uniform!
A scream was sitting in my throat but just as it was about to be let out, I felt the tight pressure pushing me out of her mind once again.
"-ean! Jean! Wake UP!" Scott was shaking my shoulders none too gently as I came back to myself. I opened my eyes and quickly let them fall shut once again.
"What happened?" My voice was dry and scratchy.
"You passed out after you went back into her mind." A chill of eeriness snaked through my body as I remembered the way the skeleton had looked at me.
The commotion around me brought me back to the present once more. With Scott's aid, I sat up and looked over at the next bed. Beads of sweat were glistening off of Daisy and Hank's foreheads. They worked frantically trying to keep the faint heart beep from flat lining. My stomach quaked with fear, my heart shattered with the loss of hope.
She wasn't even trying to fight off death. Neglecting Scott's words of warning and desperate pleading, I once again ventured into my daughter's dying mind.
"Kerry! Get here right now!" I screamed as loudly as I could without causing her mind to hemorrhage. There was no response at first, but I called her over and over until she stood in front of me once more.
"I have to go." Kerry then pointed behind her, toward a pinprick of light. "I don't think I'll see my Daddy again." She smiled, God, I wish she would stop that! "Even my new Dad was always mad at me." Tears fell from my eyes.
"Stop it, please."
"Dad-he'd be mad with me because I didn't listen very well at all." She sighed. "I don't want to be yelled at again."
"Stop being selfish, Kerry." I ordered in the best authoritative voice I could muster.
Her expression dissolved to shock and confusion. "Selfish?" Her voice sounded like that of a little girl.
"Yes." I bite through my tears. "You can't leave us like this." I had tried the gentle luring, but knowing her attitude and general spirit fighting usually worked. "We love you so much. It isn't fair to us! You aren't allowed to leave us. Your team needs you. Scott and I need you."
Kerry seemed to weigh my words thoughtfully. She looked over her shoulder as the pinprick of light had grown into large ball…but it was fiery. Her brows knitted together as she slowly came to meet my gaze again. "There are something we can't control." She gave a lopsided grin. "Even the Professor has his limits, right?"
"Fight for your life and we'll see if he does."
"I would have been better….if only I had known."
I shook my head trying to reach for her, but my hand sailed through her arm as if she were Shadowcat. "Kerry! What am I going to tell the others?" My heart felt like stone, shattering stone. "What about Scott? Your team?"
The fire had changed again, from white light to bright red fire to a dark black horizon of fire. It was death, her destination in death.
Forcing myself to concentrate hard enough on her image, I was able to make her tangible and therefore I was able to take a hold of her. "Listen her young lady, you can't do this! You can win! Would you rather die?"
"What else do I deserve?"
Without anything else to say to answer her question, I grabbed her shoulders and embraced her as if I was trying to protect her from the quick coming fire. "You deserve to live."
"That's a matter of opinion." She pushed me away. "This link is quickly dying, Jean. Don't make them lose you too." Kerry turned away from me again. "Tell them I love them." Her voice was soft and fragile. No, I couldn't lose her like this!
"Tell them yourself," I prodded.
"I have to go."
"Don't you dare!" I cried. The heat from the wave of black fire started to be felt mentally. Burning away the life of Kerry's mind. Shielding my eyes from the blinding white tips of the awesome fire, I watched in heart ache as Kerry reached out a small hand toward the flames. She was back to her childlike form. "Get away from there!"
Big green eyes turned to me, tears running down her round cheeks as she ran to me, wrapping her arms around my legs. Calling upon on all my power, I covered us both as the flames surrounded our bodies. I knew I should have pulled out there. Kerry's mind was gone…her body was going to follow shortly.
But what mother could leave her crying, fear filled child to face a monster by themselves? I hit my knees, Kerry grabbed my torso and begged me to make the nasty demons go away. Sweat was running down my face as I concentrated on the shrinking bubble of protection my powers had to offer.
"K-Kerry, I can't keep this up much longer." I didn't know how to tell her I had to leave. "I-I have to go now." Tears and the droplets of salty sweat mingled on my face.
She blinked, not completely understanding. How could she? The majority of her mind had been consumed by these death flames. "B-but you will come back, won't you mommy?"
…out off all the things she could have said….she called me her mother.
I screwed my eyes shut, concentrating on the force shield and the right words to tell her good-bye.
"You will come back, right mommy?" Her eyes spilled with tears. "Everyone is always leaving me, making me cry, saying good-bye and never coming back! You can't leave me, mommy! I'm scared!" She sobbed as her head was buried in her own little hands now.
My heart wrenched at her words, her emotions, her desperate need of me. The fire didn't pop and crackle, it howled as if a cold wind supplied its fury. Whatever its temperature was, I'd know soon enough. I grabbed my daughter tightly to my chest and braced myself for the oncoming onslaught.
"Don't cry, I'm with you."
After all, how can any mother idly stand by and let their child die?
