CHAPTER 4: BECOMING

I never thought I'd find my way
Out of yesterday
Time really passed me by
But now I need to concentrate
On the steps I take
I try, I fail, I try...
Now I'm searching in my memory, in my memory
For the man I used to be
I'm searching in my memory, in my memory
For the man I want to see

A heart of stone
Unhappy soul
Believe me, it doesn't hurt
My god he said
Don't be afraid
Don't you cry
'
cause it won't be heard

            ~Heart of Stone, DeVision



Present Day

"He's gone," Madelyne said, green eyes filled with something more than cool distance for once as she gazed down upon the body of the once formidable Master of Magnetism. And if her voice trembled, or her eyes grew damp, the other X-Men pretended not to notice.

"No," Rogue said, her voice still filled with the strange chorus of her and Magnus' voices together. "He isn't."

"Mom?" Irinee' asked, her voice like a shudder in the darkness of the room.

Rogue turned eyes that were cold and calculating on her daughter, and Irinee' shivered beneath the lack of humanity in them. But only for a moment, and then Rogue's vision seemed to clear as she recognized her daughter. Her face composed itself, and she nodded once.

"Let's do it, then."

She lashed out with her bare fist and shattered the glass cylinder. The X-Men took a collective step backward as fluid flooded the room, its blue phosphorescent glow already beginning to fade as it gushed forth.

Rogue reached out and caught the limp body in her arms as it fell free of its casing, her face conflicted with a thousand emotions as she cradled it close. She bent to her knees, moving and holding it is as if it were a precious gift that might break if she were careless.

"Give life, shugah, and be at peace," she whispered, and pressed her fingertips against wet temples.

"Jean-Luc! Irinee! Now!" she cried, eyes clenching shut with the force of focusing her power. She had never attempted this before, but she knew she could do it… she could do it… for him.

She gathered Magnus' awareness within her mind and wrapped it into a tiny ball with the most attentive of care, not neglecting a single strand of thought or persona. She had never done this before, this tight, tiny wrapping of a million threads, but she knew in her heart that if she had the power to steal from others, then she also had the power to give it back. A reversal of mental pathways, pushing out instead of drawing in. It stood to reason… it was probable.

Fuck, this is such a gamble, she thought, sweat beading on her forehead in sudden, cold bullets.

Her fingers trembled against cool skin and she shivered. Please… trust me, Erik.

She gathered him in the cradle of her mind, holding him close and safe, whispered another prayer—and then sent him shooting from her body with the force and speed of a rocket. She could feel him as he left her fingertips, and she took one last moment of familiarity, touching his awareness with the tremble of butterfly wings.

Live, Magnus. Live for me.

And then he was gone.


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

Jean-Luc and Irinee' went… away. There was no other word for it. The other X-Men shivered as they watched the twins' eyes close in unison, their bodies relaxing even as their brows tensed with concentration. In this moment they were one, acting as a single unit in perfect synchronicity, and though the others had witnessed this in practice tests, they had never seen it actually applied.

Pale faces were deadly calm save the furrowing of their brows, their beauty almost an affront to the angels of heaven itself as they worked in singular focus. They opened the pathways of their minds, telepathic waves rising and crashing with such intensity that each of the X-Men were drawn into its embrace. Images flashed through their minds even as they flashed through the twins' minds—Magnus as a child, a boy, a near-man who loved and lived and married, to a prisoner caught in the Nazi concentration camps, to the insanity that inevitably followed. Each moment, each pinpoint of excruciating pain and loss collided with their minds, projected by the psionic energy in the room through their minds as if across a movie screen.

His essence flowed through each of them, lacing and catching in their thoughts, becoming each of them. Each one of them lived through the horror of the Nazi concentration camps, through the loss of his family. Through the madness that followed in tragedy's wake. Tears fled from the eyes of each person present, each one overwhelmed by the psionic resonations and memories of a man they had known well, but never as close, never as intimately as this. His pain, his secrets, had ever been his own, locked behind dignity and grace that few others could match. No longer.

"My God," Madelyne whispered, tears trailing down her cheeks with a quiet kind of charity.

And now into adulthood, through fires and trials and battles untold, many of them against the X-Men themselves. For all their psionic protections, each X-man was consumed, immersed in the life of Erik Magnus Lensherr, glorying in each of his triumphs, crying with each of his losses.

"Dampen down," Madelyne shouted, her voice caught between a plea and a command.

The twins acquiesced, their understanding made clear with the way the images receded, leaving the X-Men in control of their own minds again, the trials and tribulations of the mutant known as Magneto reduced to background noise.

"I never… I never knew…" sobbed Wanda, collapsing to her knees.

"Shh…" Colossus whispered, catching her and comforting her in the broad expanse of his arms.

"None of us knew," Logan said, eyes still skewed as they struggled for domination over the animal rage Magnus' memories had inspired.

"No," Siryn contradicted, still standing despite the sorrow that racked her form and trailed down her cheeks. "We all knew. But none of us understood."

"Be still," Storm said, her face shining with tears that shared the same memory and sorrow. "We must let them concentrate."


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

For Jean-Luc and Irinee', the world fell away.

So rare, so beautiful, this opportunity to experience telepathic power in its most pure and ultimate form. In an instant, they were part of the world, part of the universe itself as they connected to everything and everyone in one, bright, shining moment. Thoughts shimmered like endless paths of sweetness and poison, stretching out into eternity before them. They could live here, grow lost here, following the train of others thoughts until they were lost to themselves. But there was one pathway that shined with a light that threatened to blind, stretching forth from their mother's fingertips and into the mind of the man—perhaps the only man—who could hold all that it contained, and it was this that called them.

Images that assaulted the others passed through them with the speed of light, shared, understood and remembered. They, too, would have cried, if not for the body of work before them.

Dampen down, Madelyne commanded, her voice small within their minds, but heard nonetheless.

With a mental turning to one another, Jean-Luc and Irinee' tightened the focus of the power, helping their mother funnel this thread into the new vessel that waited. It was as easy as she'd predicted—almost terrifyingly so. The neural passageways that existed within welcomed the presence they pushed, so easily that they had to pull back, for fear of leaving them damaged. It should have been easy… after all; this body was but a duplicate of Magnus', with the same neural pathways and powers as its predecessor.

With a delicacy and precision that belied the youth of their bodies, Jean-Luc and Irinee' built tethers with a patient slowness, anchoring each thought here, each memory there, in line with what had gone before. Some parts were missing, or erased from the conscious mind all together, but a bit of probing, a moment of digging beneath the surface, and they found the mental pathways that had been repressed. It was easy. Too easy. Child's play.

Their minds opened in a roaring focus, hands of their corporeal bodies reaching out to form a physical connection.

Ready? Jean-Luc asked, his form rippling on the astral plane as if a caught in the grip of a hurricane.

Yes, Irinee' said, clutching his fingers between her own.

Let's bring it home.


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

Rogue held the prone form in her arms as if it were a dream, a prayer that might vanish into nothingness if she ceased to concentrate on it for a single second.

The body still breathed, still connected to the thin tether of wires that kept it alive, but she knew they had only moments at best before it failed. Before the machine powering the rise and fall of lungs realized its subject was no longer safe within embryonic fluid.

"Come on, Magnus, live…"

Alarms began to sound in the background, flaring to life with a sonic force that pierced the skin of their souls.

The machine knew; it was aware… only seconds remained until it drew back the force that fired life into this dormant brain.

Precious seconds, and she was helpless. She could nothing but trust in the power of her children now.

She hoped it was enough.


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

Jean-Luc and Irinee' were oblivious to the blaring sound of alarms that assaulted the other X-Men. They only knew that their time was short.

Bring it home, Rinny, Jean-Luc said inside her mind, and together they gathered themselves, then let it all go.


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

Power exploded within the confines of the room, invisible and unseen, but felt nonetheless.

The X-Men were thrown to the floor to a man, all save Logan, whose effort to remain standing was reflected clearly in the trembling of his face; the blood that flowed in a sudden trickle from his right nostril. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, but still he stood, bracing himself with bended knees against the force that assaulted and insinuated itself inside him.

He could feel it happening. Could feel the beauty of pathways reconnecting, of life beginning again, blood flowing through new, young limbs.

Maybe you'll get it right, he thought, consciousness slowly fading. Maybe you'll get to have what I almost did.

And so thinking, the warrior known as Wolverine collapsed into a broken heap upon the floor, his body convulsing in time with those around him, in time with the ebb and flow of a steady heartbeat as it sprang into being.


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

The body choked on embryonic fluid, droplets flying from its mouth in crystalline, vaguely glowing flecks that glistened on Rogue's face.

And then, Joseph opened his eyes.


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

Awareness flashed through him like a flood, tingling in every nerve ending. His heart beat, and his lungs breathed and oh—it hadn't been like this since he was a boy! The slow, thundering of energy that pulsed like a living thing in every muscle and sinew.

Thick fluid built in his mouth, his lungs, and he choked to be rid of it, liquid leaving him in sudden, hacking outburst.

He could feel the connections of his mind, could feel the speed at which the messages of thought traveled inside him, and marveled at it. It was all new, and somehow all familiar at the same time.

"Rogue?" he asked, voice husky and low with the disuse of vocal cords.

"Yeah, shugah, Ah'm here," she said, her very voice like a caress.

Yeah, shugah, Ah'm here… the voice trembled in his mind, mocking and deep in a voice that was neither his nor hers. It troubled him for an instant, its dissonance raising the hairs at the back of his neck—and then it was gone, vanished as if it had never been, and he promptly forgot it as warm, sweet lips neared his.

"You're alive," she breathed.

And he realized that he was.


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

Irinee' and Jean-Luc emerged from their trance, emerald green eyes flickering in synchronous confusion.

The X-Men raised their heads, freed at last from the psionic backlash.

"It's done," they said in creepy unison.


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

Magnus/Joseph felt himself held within Rogue's embrace, and there was a moment of sheer horror as he realized what had happened. Rogue's memories, still shared through the brief union they had experienced—his own memories--explained it all.

The Shadow King… the creature who had possessed and used his body for almost two years had cleansed the vessel he now inhabited. Its pathways were cleared, memories that he already possessed from the Shadow King's merging of Joseph echoing in his mind. He had made his peace with this ghost years ago, had incorporated Joseph's thoughts and memories into his own as part of the recovery process once the Shadow King had been removed. But because he was the vessel that had been imbued with the power of the Shadow King when all this had happened, he was gifted with its final, horrific remembrance, overwhelmed by the memory of psionic rape.

Joseph screamed and bucked within the confines of his cylinder, trying desperately to force the Shadow King from his mind. There was pain! Pain beyond imagining as every piece of his mind was stripped away in long slivers of thought that felt like flesh. The Shadow King sifted through his mind with greedy fingers that took what they wished with ease, leaving him exhausted, a puppet within a master's hands. Knowledge was taken, power was shut down, and eventually… even awareness shut down, leaving him in a state of dreaming remembrance.

The memory screamed, and so did he… and then it dissolved, swallowed by the length and breadth of his mind.

His lungs gasped for their first breath of true air, and his deep, gray-blue eyes focused on hers as he clung to her, every thought, every second of awareness given completely to her. She was all that existed; his only tangible connection to the world.

"Rogue?"

"Yes, shugah. It's me." Her hands smoothed back wet, unruly hair, and she gave him a fragile smile. "You're all right. Everything's gonna be all right now."

He closed his eyes and collapsed into her embrace, given at last to the exhaustion of birth. And as he spiraled down into darkness, a disc of bright white light closed and dissolved in another time and place, carrying the body of Kitty Pryde with it.

But he knew nothing of these things, barely even knew that he was alive. And somewhere, at the bottom of the deep well of his mind, another voice greeted him, its tone thick with hatred and loathing.

"Oh yes. Everything's going to be just fine."


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

The Scarlet Witch rose from the wet confusion of the floor, legs wavering as they threatened to give out beneath her.

"I… I can't," she said, simply, eyes going to the body in Rogue's arms as it breathed and lived. "I thought I could… but I c-can't."

"It is all right, Wanda," Colossus replied, his arms never leaving her as she rose to her feet, their circumference still locked around her waist as he helped her stand. "We will wait for the others outside."

Lost, she gazed up at him in open wonder, as startled as a deer who finds its thicket disturbed.

"I…" she began, at a loss for how to continue.

"Do not worry," Colossus said, even as he steered her toward the open door.

She opened her mouth to speak again, closed it, opened it again.

"I can walk," she said, tone almost defiant as she straightened.

"I know," Colossus said, his non-metallic face stretching in a somber smile. "But you do not have to."

And so speaking, he led her to the door.


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

"Lorna?" Bobby asked, reaching out to touch her, needing to touch her in the wake of all that had happened.

She stiffened, then relaxed within his embrace. She shook her head with a bitter smile that twisted her features.

"He's not my father, Bobby." Her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth as she sought the words to convey what she felt. "He's not my father…" she said again, as if to convince herself. "But that doesn't make it any easier."

"I know," Bobby said, arms encircling her completely.

He felt like he'd glimpsed Magnus' dirty underwear as it hung from the line, as if he'd gotten a peek at ugliness—TRUE ugliness—the kind that even this shuffling, stuttering, post-apocalyptic world couldn't hope to match. He was overwhelmed, and even though he knew, even at this point, that it would pass, he couldn't help but think that he would always remember.


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

Long, slender, brown fingers reached out toward Logan's back and hesitated there.

"I'm all right, Ororo."

His tone was brisk, sharp and to the point, and even if it hadn't been, she would have recognized the distance there in the full syllables of her name, alone.

She should have known better.

Six years since Jean's departure. Six years of solitude between them, and still she reached for him as if it were some kind of instinct.

Forced by her pride to choose between best loved and second best, she had chosen not to place at all. It had been, for her, the best of the choices given.

Fingers wilted, clutched against her breast in useless emotion.

Sometimes, she regretted her decision.


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

The Past

In the outer limits of the Earth's atmosphere, Nimrod II paused to consult his programming.

Time loss experienced during travel through digital security systems; assessing precise amount of time lost. Consulting with internal clock settings as set in accordance with the year 2004.

Time loss is approximated at one day, three hours and four minutes.

Time loss considered irrelevant as applied to mission concerning secondary directive. Anomaly is still within reach. Tracking…

Nimrod II sailed through the silence of space, his goal close.


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

The Phoenix paused in her flight, her thoughts of her recent goodbye to Logan still fresh in her mind as she was… distracted.

Something…

Something wicked this way comes—

Was coming.


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

The Present

Thoughts slid like quicksilver through his mind, ephemeral ghosts just beyond his ability to grasp. He could see the shape of them… could almost understand them if he tilted his head to the side and squinted, but movement seemed beyond him now. Because he… because he was…

He was dying! Every cell in his body flared with a burning agony, turning flesh to smoking cinder. The pain was so excruciating that he could barely think past it, barely hear the weak voices that pulled at the fringes of his mind. But they were there, and they called to him with an intensity that stirred the last of his dying soul--an undeniable thread that he felt a desperate need to cling to, hold to as if it were a lifeline.

His eyes opened, and dry, cracked lips parted with last of his energy.

He spoke into the void that rose up fast to claim him with deadly intent.


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

"Oh, my God," Irinee' whispered. Green eyes the color of young spring leaves widened into saucers. She'd cut her awareness from Magnus' mind as he'd awakened, but her senses were still open to the world, and among the many, thousands of voices that flitted through her mind, one spoke with a loud, desperate distinction that she could not deny.

The other X-Men took her words as a testament to the miracle of Magnus' rebirth, and did not even spare her so much as a glance. But her brother was staring at her with wide eyes that echoed the astonishment and aching need to disbelieve she felt within her own heart.

Did you—was it—

I think it—

I think—I'm not--

I don't know—

It can't be,
she thought, the proclamation weak in the echo of the psionic cry that still lingered.

What else could it be?

I don't know.

Oh… my God.


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

"What did he say?" Renaldo asked, leaning down from his console.

Dr. Hayes pursed her lips, shook her head. The fluid was drained from the tanks now, the restoration complete, but her subject seemed frantic, confused, his words so many garbled, hurried syllables that she could not make out.

"I don't know," she admitted. "But I think he's remembering something… maybe he even…"

Her brows rose in surprise with the sudden thought.

"Shut it down, Renaldo. Shut it all down!"

Renaldo's face worked with confusion for a split second, skin flowing with contorted emotions over bone like some kind of distorted symphony.

And then his fingers were at the switches, cutting power.

Emergency lights flared into life all around them, the lab seeming wrong somehow in their warm yellow glow. This wasn't a room meant to be lit with atmosphere; it was meant to be harsh and cold. Veronica liked it that way. It kept her job simple.

"Shit," she hissed through tight lips, and then there was no more time to give it thought. Her patient's eyes opened; alien eyes that had never seen this world.

Pupils slowly contracted, focused on her. Their depths swirled with confusion, swam with endless questions, and she found herself tired, unwilling to answer.

She didn't want this.

But it was hers.

She took a deep breath, met his eyes with a smile that she dredged up from somewhere in the depths of memory.

She hoped he was still dazed enough to buy it.

"It's all right," she said, and had to bite back a chuckle at her own words. She pressed her fingers against her lips to still their growing curve and waited until the moment of odd hilarity had passed. "You're… safe."

Eyes focused on her with sharp clarity for a moment, then lost focus again as they traversed the tube that contained him, the mass of wires that extended from them like so many thousands of umbilical cords.

"Where…" Eyes stuttered, finding no familiarity, no comfort in his surroundings. For an instant, there was a flash of danger in them, and Veronica thanked whatever God's might be listening that he wasn't at full strength yet. The lab had failsafes, defense systems, and auto-self-destruct, of course—but none of those things were making her feel too safe just now.

The moment passed, and vague confusion returned, and she heaved a silent sigh of relief.

"Where… am I?" he asked, voice weak and raspy.

She ignored the question, as protocol demanded, save the only answer he needed to hear. "Safe, as I said." She paused, shifted her body toward him a gesture that she hoped inspired comfort. She was Doctor of science, dammit, not people.

"Do you know who you are?" she asked. The click of her manicured nails sounded very loud to her ears as they skittered over the edge of the glass. So much depended on this. Too much, maybe. More than she was, perhaps, capable of outside her arena of machine technology.

"I…" his eyes rolled up in his head, fluttered shut as he struggled to answer the question.

"No," he said, and the answer was so raw, so naked and filled with desperate sadness that it nearly broke her clinical heart.

"Memory loss is… typical in this situation," she tried to assure him. Even knowing it was true didn't make it fair. But then again, neither was anything she'd involved her life in.

She drew the syringe from her pocket, tapped it, and it squirted just a bit liquid as she cleared the air from it.

"But it's all right," she went on. "Because you're not going to remember any of this, either," she said, piercing his bare flesh with the needle.

His eyes opened with the penetration, met hers again—so strange, so alien. She found herself drawn into them, caught by the misery and need that so consumed him.

"Let… me go," he whispered, and for an insane moment, lost in the swirl of his eyes, she was tempted to do just that.

Then his eyes fluttered shut again, and he lapsed into unconsciousness, body going limp.

Dr. Hayes rose briskly from her perch and turned to Renaldo.

"Do whatever you have to do. I don't care. I want him out of here as soon as possible."

"Well, there's still the temporal--"

"I don't care," she said, cutting him off. "Just get hi—it, out of here."

"Yes, Doctor," Renaldo said dutifully, and returned to his back-up powered computer screen.


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

"Rogue…" Storm approached the woman with grace and caution, her voice hushed in the stillness of the room, its machinery silent now. In the rapidly fading blue light, she could just make out Rogue's face, the shape of the body she still held in her arms.

"Is he…?"

"He's fine," Rogue said, almost snapping. She sighed, then shook her head. "Ah'm sorry, Ororo. Ah'm just… he's alive… but Ah want him to wake up."

"We need to get to the Blackbird," Storm replied, understanding but urgent. "We can do more for him there."

Rogue nodded and rose, lifting the pliant body in her arms as easily as if were a sack of groceries.


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

The daylight seemed bright to her eyes, so much brighter than it had when they had entered, and she squinted against its intrusion.

She shifted Joseph—Magnus' body in her arms—and suddenly he moved.

She set him down, too stunned to do much else, still not quite believing what they had done.

He rose to his full height with a regal composure that was owned and trademarked by Magnus alone.

"Magnus!" Theresa exclaimed.

He turned his head just slightly toward the exclamation, long, white hair trailing over one shoulder, and a familiar smile passed over the face that was his, but not quite his.

"Are you… Are you okay?" Rogue asked, the words squeezing from her throat with palpable hope.

He considered a moment, then tilted his head at her, that smirk never leaving his lips.

"I have absolutely no idea. But I am alive. And while I am, and before I discover what you have done and find out exactly what all this means, there is one thing I want to do before the moment escapes me."

Rogue shook her head, just barely—it almost seemed as if all her movements had become very tiny, miniscule, all the way down to her heart, which was not diminished, but suddenly filled with the thundering hooves of a thousand horses.

"What?" she asked, completely at a loss.

He gathered her in his arms and pulled her to him, her body pressing against him with a sweetness that stung him to the core of his heart. He could scarcely believe the feeling of new limbs, the blood and passion that coursed through them, so much hotter than he'd ever remembered. And she answered him. She was a hurricane of need, a tornado that teased and twisted at his tongue, drawing him in deeper, and deeper, devouring his awareness, devouring the moment until time ceased to exist.

The X-Men turned away, avoiding their eyes with the respect due to both of them; some of them shifted uncomfortably, others smiled and looked at each other.

Jean-Luc and Irinee' were the only pair who were not lovers who looked to each other, their eyes wide and lost.

Shouldn't we—

No, Irinee' said. They deserve this, at least.

Their kiss the narrow point on which reality balanced, Magnus and Rogue were, in that moment, blissfully unaware of anything beyond each other. In that moment, they did not think to question how long this could last—indeed, it seemed to last forever. In that moment, they forgot themselves completely and gave over to a single, primal moment of unity.

In that moment, they forgot that Time was a thief who stole everything—one way or another.

And perhaps it was well that they did.