If you live through this with me,
I swear that I will die for you
And if you live through this with me,
I swear that I will die for you
Was she asking for it?
Was she asking nice?
Yeah, she was asking for it
Did she ask you twice?

            ~Asking For It, Hole




CHAPTER 2: BREAKDOWN

Waves of energy struck his body with incredible force, sending nanobyte technology scattering in every direction to correct the damage. Titanium steel, reinforced to seven times its normal strength, splayed in every direction for a moment as the explosion moved it, throwing him flat against the ground. The energy roared in a whirlwind all around him, sending a blast of static squawking through his interface. It cleared after a moment, and he watched as the protons slowed in their rapid vibrations, cooling, and released from their oppression, tiny microbes of metal crawled, scurrying to find their proper places.

He turned his head to the side as he waited, eyes glowing bright crimson as they took in the area around his immediate vicinity. Everything was decimated, buildings laid to their very foundations and surrounded by smoking bodies in every direction. The landscape itself was scorched, pocked with deep pits, grass burned away completely, soil blackened as far as his optical scanners could see.

He consulted his programming to see if this was logical.

Memory systems were silent, not responding, and then his voice spoke aloud, breaking a silence that was complete and total in the absence of all life. Anomaly Encountered: System Rebooting.

There was a sense of being drained, all awareness leaving him in blackness for a split second, and then he felt himself rise as if reborn, expanding, reconnecting. Organic, electrolit nervous systems fired to life, sending messages—information processed faster than any human being had the capacity to understand. Titanium fingers stretched as electrons communicated their vital data, and memory banks filled with information that made itself readily available in compartmented, concise blocks.

All Systems Online, he reported to no one in particular, and felt the nanobytes settle in, titanium surface pulled tight at last and reinforced by their technology.

Processing Helio-luminscence. Sensors locked on to the sun and processed its brightness. Confirming current year.

Current year is 2004, helio-luminescence suggesting early summer months.

Nimrod II did not rise from the ground so much as its body liquefied and reformed in a standing position. Processes fired through its organic nervous system, and sensors clicked and whirred in response.

Location confirmed. Pre-programmed arrival at designated place and time is complete, based on all available data.

Information coursed through his circuits and advanced synapses with the speed of light, feeding the computer database that served as his brain.

Scanning for target…

Biorhythm found.

Sensors locked, and he turned south, internal systems mapping a course.

Exception: Anomaly detected.

Organic, electrolit systems blinked, processing this information.

Anomaly identified as a threat to the space/time continuum. Initiating secondary directive: Do not allow timeline to be affected beyond primary directive.

Nimrod II realigned his sensors, systems already recalculating his trajectory.


*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Come on," Rogue said with eagerness, tugging at his hand like a child excited by the promise of cotton candy and popcorn at the circus. "I want to see!"

Magnus followed without question as she slipped her fingers through his and led him onward. Ahead, in the foreground of the blasted landscape, a huge sign loomed, bright yellow and luminescent in the darkness, so bright it was like a beacon. It curved in the shape of an "A", so large it seemed to loom up and touch the dark clouds that roiled above their heads. Beneath its intimidating height were tiny words, white letters printed across a long red rectangle that marked the end of the bright yellow light. Magnus squinted, and could just make out the shape of them.

"Billions and Billions Dead" and beneath that, "Please Drive Thru".

He took a sharp breath, and looked up to the letter "A" again, understanding on some intrinsic level that it stood for "Apocalypse", and this time, he glimpsed a body hung from the inside apex of the "A". The corpse twisted in the wind, suspended upside down by one foot, and though he couldn't see from here—knew he couldn't see from here—he could tell it was a mutant, its face twisted by darkness, a touch of evil bestowed by the Shadow King himself. By his own hand.

"You're going to miss it," Rogue said and pulled at his hand again.

They stood before a speaker with a large billboard spread out behind it. The names of dead mutants were printed across it in deep red that dripped like blood, each one a glaring accusation; Beast, Angel, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Havok, Psylocke, Longshot, Firestar, Cannonball… Charles Xavier. Every single one of them was there, each mutant that had died as result of his actions, and their names fell upon his mind like acid rain, burning with recrimination as they ate away to the core of his soul.

A demonic voice croaked over the loudspeaker, like a bellow straight out of hell. "Take your order please?"

"Yes," Rogue said with an excited smile. "I'd like to order a mutant death with a side of Gambit."

"You want that with cheese?" the demon asked, sounding incredibly bored.

"Yes, please," Rogue said, and she trembled with anticipation. She looked at Magnus and gave him a secretive grin of confidence. "This is the best part." She squeezed his hand, and he looked down—

And watched as her fingers lengthened and thickened between his, their tips growing blunt. In the strange yellow light, he could see the perfect crescent moons of each short nail as they dug into his flesh, squeezing his hand so hard he felt the bones crack.

He gasped and looked up at Rogue—and Remy grinned back at him. Red eyes glowed with feral bloodlust, and his face split in a grin too wide for any human countenance, lips curled back in the snarling mask of a wolf. Teeth, so many teeth, Magnus marveled in distant horror, and each one was sharp as a razor blade. Blood dripped from his mouth in streaming rivulets that coursed down his uniform and turned it black as the night around them, but Remy didn't seem to care.

"Dis de best part," he said, tongue shredding to ribbons against his teeth even as he spoke. "Dis de part where you die, old man."

Remy's hand tightened, crushing bones to powder, and Magnus felt the pain like a lightning bolt that traversed the length of his left arm and exploded in his chest.

He fell to his knees and screamed—

"Magnus!" Rogue hissed, squeezing his hand in a death grip as she rose from her seat beside him. "It's okay. You're okay," she said, her voice strangely tight as she spoke, laced with an emotion he couldn't quite name.

He sat up and his chest twinged with the sudden movement. Operating on instinct, one hand rose to his heart, and sharp pain shot up his right arm as the IV needle pulled free.

He looked down at it, dazed and uncomprehending. Suspicious eyes flickered with uncertainty from the tiny needle to Rogue's face, mind slowly taking in the sights and scents around him. Sterile alcohol, the smell of sickness beneath a cheerful lemon yellow. A hospital. He was in a hospital.

"Rogue?" he asked, gaze feeling slack and unfocused as he looked at her. "What… happened?"

Her face looked pinched, tiny and naked somehow beneath the bright fluorescents. Her lovely mouth was drawn tight with lines of tension, and he could see with a clarity that startled him how her jaw muscle worked beneath her skin. Whatever it was, it was bad. He knew that even before her emerald eyes skirted his with hesitation.

"How bad is it?" he asked, his voice rasping through his throat with burning pain. Come to think of it, everything hurt right now, from his arm to his chest all the way down to the tips of his toes.

"They… they don't know yet. They said it… they said it was a heart attack," she admitted, face crumpling with misery.

And despite his predicament, despite the words that had just left her mouth, he felt the low rumble of laughter deep in his throbbing chest.

"It's not funny," she said, face shocked and stern as she confronted him, eyes swinging up to meet his.

His laughter curled into a tight ache, and he coughed, shook his head. "All hail the Master of Magnetism, homo superior, laid low by something as normal and base and human as a heart attack."

Her fingers flexed against his, smooth silk against flesh as she drew his attention again. "It's still not funny."

"No," he agreed after a moment. "I don't suppose it is."

She sat back down in her seat, mollified by his response. "The others are waiting. They're worried. Especially Irinee' and Jean-Luc." Her face seemed to convulse, and at last he understood the tightness he'd heard in her voice earlier. She was on the verge of crying, of letting everything go and breaking down right there.

"You've been like a Daddy to them, Magnus, ever since… ever since…" She pressed her lips between her teeth and closed her eyes, fighting for control. "Ah don't know what they'd do without you."

He heard her words, but more than that, he heard the meaning that lurked beneath them, spoken in that special language they had used increasingly over the course of the last five years. The children would be devastated, of course. But it wasn't only them that she spoke of.

"Rogue… Sabine…" he hesitated, then pulled at her hand, drawing her near. The motion reminded him of his dream, and for a moment, he lost completely whatever he'd been about to say. Frantic doctors and nurses had surely pumped him full of drugs when he'd been admitted, which accounted for the odd clarity of the moment coupled with the fuzziness of logic. It accounted for a lot, but not everything. "Five years we have danced this dance, and in all that time I have never said a word. Five years of wishing and hoping, of thinking there was always more time. But today has proven beyond anything else that we never know how much time we might have, and I tire."

"Magnus." Her voice was a whisper, her face a frozen mask of agony. Always before she would have stepped up, would have put him back in his place, but today, he knew that she would not. Could not. It was there in the caress of her voice, in the fear that trembled in it.

"Five years, Sabine. And all this time you have mourned him. I know you love him. I know it chokes you like a living thing. I know because I felt it myself, once."

She bowed her head, hiding her eyes from his, the stripe of her hair falling forward to cover her features completely. "It hurts Magnus. Like nothing Ah ever imagined." She took a deep, gasping breath and shuddered. "Sometimes it's hard just to breathe, and Ah don't know… Ah just don't know what to do."

He flexed his fingers around hers, and wished that she had not worn her gloves, despite the words he was about to speak. "I am old Rogue. My body fails and my life nears its end… and for all that it seems like some twisted joke played by the universe, it is natural. It is right." She shook her head, began to speak, and he held up a hand to quiet her. "You are still young. With the healing factor you acquired from Wildchild, you will likely live far beyond your normal years." He sighed, forced himself to meet her eyes.

"You have time, Rogue. Do not waste it. Live. If not for yourself, then for him." He reached out with his right hand, though she could not see it, stopping short of stroking her hair. He wanted to—between the drugs and the dying he wanted it more than just about anything right now—but he didn't quite dare, and the gesture would have been awkward, housed as it was within his time-bruised frame.

His voice was soft, coiling around her like an embrace as he went on. "Remy was a jealous man, rash and impulsive, yes… but he was also a good man who loved you, and he would want you to go on."

She lifted her face to him, expression dulled and streaked with tears; the light of a thousand candles extinguished. She crumbled, shattering with a twist of her mouth that made his heart ache. "Ah don't know how," she said, breathless and broken.

"You will," he said, holding her eyes with his own. "When the time is right. Not with me, perhaps," he said with a rueful glance down the length of his body. "But there will be someone, one day."

"Stop," she said, pushing his hand against his chest as she drew back. "Stop talking like you're going die!"

"I may very well be dying Rogue. Would you have me be silent and take my secrets into death?"

"You don't know… you can't understand what it's like, feeling like this!"

He opened his mouth to reply, with something clever and witty, no doubt, and then she banished the words from his mouth, stole the breath from his chest.

"Seeing you like this! It breaks mah heart, Magnus, and Ah can't even find the words to explain why. You're right. It's been five years of dancing, never saying what we've felt, and Ah'm tired of it, too. Is this what it takes? Does it take touching death to realize what's worth living for? Because right now, all Ah know is that Ah can't imagine a day of waking up and not seeing you, of knowing Ah'm never going to see you again. And Ah hate myself for caring, because Ah still love Remy and always will, and because Ah know I waited too long and now Ah might never get ta know what Ah could have had if Ah hadn't been so--"

And then he was grabbing her and kissing her—passionately, desperately, drinking in every taste of her as if he might never get enough. His fingers twined in her hair at last, and it was just as soft, just as silky as he'd always imagined it. She tasted like sweet peaches and summer rain and she melted in his mouth, melted against him in a single sweet, aching moment that seemed to stretch for eternity. His fingers brushed the canvas of her skin and tasted its texture; the curve of her cheek, the swell beneath her lower lip.

And then he tasted salt in his mouth--the bitterness somehow just as sweet, just as much an essential part of her—and she was drawing away, her face a collision of emotion.

His lips still tingled with her touch, and salt still lingered on his tongue even as she clapped a hand over her mouth, green eyes going wide, captured in a perfect moment of regret.

"Ah…" she breathed, her face just as beautiful as it had been when he had first met her, her features untouched by time and the ravages of age. "Magnus… Ah can't. Ah can't let him go."

His mouth stretched in a tired smile, the last taste of her lips fading from all but memory. "I know."

His chest convulsed in sudden knot of pain, muscles clenching, palpitating in erratic, deadly rhythm. The door to eternity, so near with her touch, seemed to swing open before him and beckon with promise. He felt his fingers clutch against hers in a reflexive reaction, and every nerve in his body strained as his teeth clicked and ground together.

"Magnus! No!"

As if from very far away, he could hear her voice rise with panic, reaching a screaming crescendo on the last word. He sensed more than saw her movement around him, free hand flailing for buttons, calling the nurse. He would have told her it was futile, would have told her stop and be still so he could look at her one last time, but his breath was short, so very short…

"Let…me… go," he whispered through gritted teeth. And then everything fell away, familiar blackness reaching up to claim him with authority. He went to it willingly.

His fingers flexed once, and then went limp within her grasp.


*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"What's she doing in there?" Jean-Luc demanded, his face surly even as his tone pouted. Set deep within his chair, knees spread wide, one elbow supporting the hand that held his chin, his almost femininely beautiful face achieved a kind of angelic angst.

Irinee' stopped pacing, cast her brother a quick glance, then looked back down the long hall that had swallowed her mother more than an hour ago.

"What do you think she's doing, little one?" Madelyne asked, and her cat-green eyes glowed with knowing.

"Comforting him, of course," Ororo said, her glance reproving as she eyed Madelyne.

"Oh, of course," Madelyne said, seeming to swallow her tongue with a quiet chuckle.

"If you've got something to say," Jean-Luc said with all the arrogance and teenage assurance of one who knows everything, his eyes far more disdainful and threatening than Ororo's. "Then I think you'd better say it."

"It's nothing that shouldn't be obvious," Madelyne replied with a sanguine smile and a shrug.

"You know what, Madelyne?" he asked, green eyes flashing red for a split second. "Seven years of you on this team and I've had it with you."

"Any time you think you're ready, youngling," Madelyne replied, her expression serene.

Wolverine rose from his seat and laid a hand on Jean-Luc's shoulder, halting him in mid-rise.

"Anyone so much as thinks about throwin' a punch or a power in here and I'll punch all yer tickets myself." He shot Madelyne a dark glare. "Bad enough Magnus is hurt. We don't need to go heapin' any more hurt on Rogue, too," he said and looked back to Jean-Luc.

Dazzler rose from her seat, insinuated her body just slightly in front of Wolverine's. "You want something from the snack machine?" she asked Jean-Luc with a smile. "Because I'm thinking, in times of trouble, nothing comforts like two-month-old candy bars." She paused, took in the impassive landscape of Jean-Luc's face, then shrugged. "Besides, I'm dying for a smoke," she admitted. "What do you say we get outta this place for a while?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Jean-Luc said, and settled back in his seat with a glare.

"Or, you could stay here and pick a fight and throw around your burgeoning manhood," she agreed with another shrug. "You wanna be the one to explain that to your mother when she comes back?"

For a moment, he was unmanned, reduced to the gawky near-teenager he actually resembled. His composure returned with haste, however, and the corners of his mouth curled in a sardonic smile. "You can go peddle the psych crap somewhere else. I've been studying it for last three years."

Dazzler smirked and folded her arms over her chest, regarding him with something like grudging admiration. "How old are you kid? Twelve?"

"Almost thirteen," he protested.

"Not old enough to have a license for that kind of cynicism," she replied with a shake of her head, smile grown rueful.

"I promise I'll be a good boy, Dazz," Jean-Luc said, voice edging into sarcasm on the last syllable, but he smiled bright and wide, like a crocodile.

"Too much o' yer Daddy in ya fer yer age, boy," Logan said and shook his head with a reluctant grin as Dazzler subsided. Not that he guessed that was surprising, considering the kid's Dad had died when he was only six and he'd grown up part of a team of outcast mutants who fought for their lives more often than they enjoyed them.

Jean-Luc only smiled, and it was Irinee' who replied. "He's just worried, like the rest of us. Mom's been in there forever, and they're not letting anyone else in until he wakes up."

There had been no dispute about Rogue going into the room as the only visitor. Even Wanda hadn't challenged her on that. Theresa had bristled at the decision, perhaps even more a daughter to Magnus than his own blood, but even she had said nothing. It was unspoken among them—well among all of them save Madelyne, who possessed the tact of a rock--but they all knew what existed between Magnus and Rogue, unspoken and supposedly non-existent as both of them pretended it was. The year's since Remy's death had brought them close in more than the sense of a united leadership of the team. Magnus had been as much of a father to the children as he could without crossing the invisible line of decorum that still persisted despite the apocalypse that had destroyed the structure of the world. He and Rogue were as close as two parents or people could have been, without the physicality of love.

Whatever was going on in that room, Logan was of the opinion that they should all stay the hell out of it.

"She'll let us know when he wakes up, darlin'," Logan said, turning toward Irinee'.

She nodded, smiling with a bravery that warmed his heart though her ethereal face was still contorted with worry. Then she frowned, her head cocking to one side like an animal as she listened to something only she could hear.

"Something's wrong," she said, body tensing.

"I know," Jean-Luc said and stood up from his seat.

"Blazes," Logan cursed, the disturbance that had reached their minds now reaching his ear.

"What is it?" Storm asked, tense as the rest of them as she stepped forward.

Logan turned to look at her with bleak, regretful eyes. "It's Magnus."


*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Despite the nurse's protests that they could NOT go in there--could not possibly go in there--not at all--the two teams pushed past her with a gentle but brisk deference that did not include following her orders in the least.

Inside the room, the doctor held a pair of paddles in his hands, and several nurses stood by, their eyes hopeful but resigned.

"Clear!" shouted the nurse closest to the doctor.

Rogue stood just slightly behind the nurse, her eyes filled with tears, fists clenching uselessly as she watched. "Damn you, Magnus… come on," she pleaded, murmuring beneath her breath.

Magnus' body arched with a suddenness that was shocking as the doctor touched the paddles to his chest, and his body convulsed with the violent flow of electricity.

"Patient not responding," the doctor proclaimed, his voice terse.

In the doorway, the X-Men paused and held their collective breath, watching on with futile hope.


*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Dr. Hayes stood over the healing tank, her face impassive as she studied the kaleidoscope of rainbow color on its oily surface.

"Patient is responding positively to epidermal stimulation. Skin and musculature regenerating at a rate of three square inches per hour," Renaldo reported.

Dr. Hayes nodded and eyed the breathing tubes that descended into the tank. The intake and exhalation of air was invisible to her eyes, but somehow she took comfort in it, knowing that her patient lived despite the grievous wounds suffered. Endless black tubes descended all around those clear ones, each ending in soft suction cups that shocked and stimulated skin into new growth.

They had sedated the patient, of course. The forced, rapid re-growth of skin would be enough to send even the most hardy humanoid into shock, possibly even causing heart failure. And yet, from where she sat, she could see the look of consternation upon the face of its reception, brows knitted in pain.

Eyes fluttered open beneath the oily surface of mercurial liquid, and Doctor Hayes gasped in surprise.

"Vital signs spiking!" Renaldo exclaimed with sudden urgency. He paused a moment to read the bio-scans and repeated what Dr. Hayes had already guessed.

"Patient is entering cardiac arrest! Employing mental inhibitors to decrease sensation."

Dr. Hayes grabbed the edge of the tank and leaned over, nearly whispering as she spoke to the patient who almost surely couldn't hear her. "Come on, love. Don't give out on us now."

The body beneath her flexed and convulsed as contractions racked its body.

"Failsafes employed," the computer reported. "Subject unresponsive."


*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Madelyne!" Rogue exclaimed as she sighted the group clustered at the door. "Do something! You're a telekinetic; make it stop!"

The doctor spared them a quick glance, his face torn by conflicting emotion. Then he turned back and charged the paddles again.

"What would you have me do, Rogue?" the red-headed woman asked with a smile. "Force his heart to beat? He's dying. The second I let go, it will stop again."

"Do it anyway," Rogue snapped, her face set.


*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Administer more painkillers, Renaldo," Dr. Hayes shouted, formal, scientific speech forgotten in her panic.

"Doctor…" Renaldo's breath was heavy and loud within lab, despite the pleasant hum of functioning machinery. "Any more drugs and the patient might never recover."

"Do it!" she commanded. "I'll take responsibility for it, but if anything happens now, when we're so close, more than our lives will be at stake."

Renaldo set his jaw and held her eyes for what seemed like forever before he finally looked down and pressed the buttons she'd instructed him to.

"Administering 50 cc's of nocistatin."

"Nocistatin injected," the computer replied in a cool, nonchalant voice that resembled nothing of their all-too-human dread.


*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Madelyne stared at Rogue, confounded, and Storm stepped forward.

"Rogue, I know it is painful, but if he is meant to die in this manner--"

"Do it, Madelyne," Rogue ordered, ignoring Storm completely.

"This is ridiculous, Rogue. Even if I force his heart to beat, I cannot keep him alive forever!"

"You don't have to," Rogue replied, voice sharp, face made of stone, cold curves half obscured by shadow.

"Ah know how to save him."


*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Elsewhere…

Everything seemed in perfect order. The great hall was restored to its former glory; candles lit, gold trim gleaming in their mellow light. The newly named Black Queen glanced around, judging her surroundings. Fur Elise drifted down from the ceiling in sweet, violinist bursts, and servants scurried around her, hastening to ready things for their guests. It had been long since she'd danced on the skin of this world, and it felt inviting, familiar… inferior.

She passed her fingers through the flames of a candelabra and smiled at the slight sting.

Soon—not right away—but soon, her guests would arrive. Ororo, Logan, Piotr, all the rest. She couldn't wait to see them.

How surprised they would be.