Backstage
By Mackatlaw
Continuity: Insert this anytime in a story when Jean Grey has died. This could be what happens next. The handyman comes from a short backup story by Chris Claremont in an old classic X-Men, which heavily inspired this piece. It could possibly happen at the end of my "Final Flight of the Phoenix" story, when the play has ended and the story is over. Or it might not.
"I can't remember who I am," she said softly, staring out into space. Here it wasn't just a metaphor. It actually was the edge of space, brilliant white stars strewn like jewels on the blackness of the interstellar void. She sat on a girder high atop the frame of a skyscraper, this level still incomplete. Below her was the Earth, familiar shapes of continents visible far below the Olympian heights. Her outfit was green and gold, bright and gaudily wrapped around the body of a red-headed woman. Long curls reflected the light of the heavens with a warm, rich sheen, like the reds of a tree's leaves in autumn or the sunset over Hiroshima. She sat on the girder, hugging her knees close to herself, turning her attention down from the stars back to her boots.
"This can't be real, this doesn't make sense. No one could make a building this high. But I'm here, so it must be real. I don't want to be crazy, but why can't I remember my name?"
"You're closer than you think," said a nearby voice, and the woman jumped. She scrambled to her feet awkwardly, green eyes distrusting. "Who are you?" she snapped.
The man was wearing the outfit of a construction worker: denim overalls, hard hat, and tool belt around his waist. He was older than her, salt-and pepper stubble, but his muscles showed the proof of hard work. He inspected the girder next to her critically.
"You're backstage. When you remember how you got here, you can leave. Until then, you're stuck." He took out his hammer and started tapping on a bolt, checking its fit.
The woman sputtered. "Backstage? What on earth are you talking about? I've been waiting here for days! Or maybe it's weeks – I don't remember."
"I bet the last thing you remember is sitting here. Don't you think that how you got here is more important than who you are?"
She frowned, beautiful even in distress. "Wait. But doesn't my name matter?"
"No," he said, picking up a steel beam and balancing it on his shoulder. He walked over to where the last beam ended and began hammering. "Don't even worry about what I'm doing, or why I'm making this. Think back to how you got here, retrace your steps."
Uncertainly, she closed her eyes in thought for a moment, and a faint fiery glow shimmered around her body. Then she opened them again.
"I was sleeping. Then I woke up, and I was here. I don't know how I know that, but it's true."
Around her, wings began to take form. They could have been that of an angel's, but they were not. The bird's head shaped by the fire gave the lie to that assumption. Phoenix rising, Phoenix rose, Phoenix risen.
"It's all the same," the man said gently. "I just work here. I wouldn't want to live here. You, you're just visiting. Time to wake up, isn't it, and find out where you're meant to be and live and work? Someone must be missing you."
Jean Grey nodded decisively. "I remember who I am now. Not the particulars, but the general themes. I died, I rose again, but it never mattered. Death was never very real for me."
The handyman smiled. "I have to keep building the bridge, Jean. Someday, they'll reach the stars, become the gods. Until then, someone has to keep them in line, tear down the old parts, so I can use it to make the new. That's your part, your role."
The Phoenix smiled back, and with a leap of light and fire and energy, rose into the heavens, a great bird of destruction and rebirth. Then, crying like a newborn, she folded her wings and plummeted to earth. Somewhere below, a woman opened her eyes again, and the old day ended as a new one began..
