Part 17

White room, white lab coat, blue face. His eyes stared at that blue face, trying to make sense of it. It was fuzzy—was that his vision? There was noise, a dull, featureless droning, coming at him from far away and slamming into the wall of silence in his head, so that only a masked undertone of it came through.

Silence. Something was missing. He knew something was missing, but the snaggled, damaged passageways of his brain couldn't connect what. There was a word, on the tip of his tongue, burning there like a hot coal. What was it?

A fuzzy blue hand to go with the fuzzy blue face was holding down his shoulder now. Had he been trying to get up? He didn't know… didn't know anything but that there was something gone, something he needed to remember.

Something… or… someone?

His chest hurt, heart in a crazed frenzy. He tried to remember… there'd been an explosion, fire raining down… maybe that's where the hot coal on his tongue had come from. Before that… a man in a chair, tied up, pleading for help. They had come there looking for someone…

They? There should have been someone else here…

Someone beside the blue face that was still moving its oxygen-less lips in that continuous monotone droning.

But that someone wasn't here, and he… he was alone.

Alone in an empty mind that still had the scent of a name drifting through its bare blackness.

The hot coal erupted—the name was Emily.

------

He had to find her. She was lost and he had to find her.

He tried calling her name. Tried searching through his mind, turning over the scraps and fallen walls and rubble. Why was it so messy in here? He couldn't remember.

It didn't matter anyway. It didn't matter because she wasn't under any of it.

Gone?

He felt frantic. No, that wasn't right. She was just hiding.

Maybe Emily was playing hide-and-go-seek.

Ready or not here I come.

Emily?

No answer.

Emily? Come back girl. I need you!"

Again, no answer.

She had to be somewhere. With renewed vigor he began tearing at the few remaining intact portions of his mind.

He'd find her.

------

A clock was ticking.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

It was screaming out the beats in a high-pitched blur without waiting for the proper time to pass.

A clock on steroids.

There were voices hiding behind it.

"He's in shock. I don't know what else to do but wait. I can't seem to get his pulse under 100. Whatever his mind is going through, it's feeding his body constant adrenaline."

"We have no idea what's causing this?"

"Not a clue."

Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

That clock was driving him mad.

Shut up stupid clock.

"Wait..."

"What happened?"

"I have no idea… His pulse just dropped down to 70."

------

"Remy."

It was one of the voices on the 'outside'. It was saying other things too, but right now that was the only part he seemed to be able to understand.

"Remy…"

He struggled to remember what it meant.

Oh yeah… that was his name.

------

There were moments of lucidity, when Remy thought he had a handle on who he was. There were moments when his eyes opened and he saw faces hovering over him—eyes and noses and mouths jumbled up like Picassos. He couldn't identify them, but he thought he should know who they were. Instead, all he knew was that he was alone.

He stood in his tattered mind, looking at the pieces of glass glittering there. It was dark, like usual, and his life force glowed oddly—a slight bluish-green tint to it. Her fragrance left behind.

She'd been right. His powers were a mess, and as he walked carefully around the broken shards of himself, he saw that the way back out onto the astral plane beyond the boundaries of his own psyche were barred by fallen debris. It would take a while to clean up.

He walked over to it, tried to dig a small hole to look out. It was hard to do, but when he did, he thought he could hear a voice. It was whispering: "Remy. Can you hear me?"

He frowned. The voice wasn't HERS. It was a stranger, and he told it so.

"Remy, it's Jean."

Jean? He didn't know what that meant. He looked around, at the piles of debris. It must be in here somewhere. Shuffling through, he looked and looked for any sign of that name. It took a while to find it, but when he did, he held up the shard of his mind victoriously.

Jean. X-Men. A few stray memories gusted by him.

I remember.

"Good," the voice said.

Now leave.

"What?" The voice seemed shocked.

You don't belong here. He dropped the mind-shard and walked back to the debris wall that led to the 'outside'. Picking up a scrap from the floor, he re-plugged the hole.

------

Someone was singing. He heard the sound distinctly, and it seemed to have been a long time since he'd heard any sound so.

Slowly, Remy opened his eyes. It hurt.

Light. He marveled at it for a moment, confused. He'd spent so much time in the dark recently.

For a moment his vision swirled, making impressionist paintings out of his surroundings. It began to clear and he saw a room. Lots of white and lots of equipments. Funny boxes with funny letters and words on their funny digital displays.

"Remy! You're awake."

He turned to the sound and winced. Pain. Why was he in pain? It subsided as he focused on a woman standing next to him. Comparing his position to hers he realized he was laying down on a bed. A bed that was hard and uncomfortable.

"You've been asleep for a week."

The woman was looking at him with large green eyes. A name. He knew she had a name. He stared at the white streaks that ran through the front of her auburn hair… like falls of snow that had forgotten to melt.

It came to him. "Rogue?"

"Ah'm here sugah."

Well that was a silly thing to say. Of course she was here. He wrinkled up his face in confusion. "I know."

"How do you feel?"

For some reason, that seemed like a strange question. He looked around the room again. Pieces of him mind seemed to be falling into place, slowly re-aligning themselves. It was like a big puzzle.

"I didn't mean t' steal de jewel. But it looked so lonely, I couldn't jus' leave it there," he said.

"Huh?" Rogue responded. Her eyebrows tried to meet at the bridge of her nose, but they were too thin and delicate.

Wait. That wasn't right. He must have put that puzzle piece in the wrong place. Blinking, he struggled to set things straight.

"Do you remember what happened?" Rogue was asking.

He thought about that. "I'm not sure." He looked up at her expectant and worried face. Little patches of darkness had spilled out of her eyes, like ink splotches under her bottom lids. She really should wash them off. She'd look a lot better without them.

His eyes focused on something behind her. Another bed. A mass of red hair was lying on it, cradling a face over a white blanket. After a moment, his mind found the appropriate name. Jean.

Rogue followed his gaze. "She suffered some mental trauma from Shadow King. Scott says she's talked to him through their rampart and told him she'll be fine. Just needs a little fixing time."

He looked at Jean coldly. "She should stay outta other people's minds.

"What?"

"Don't belong. Her hair's de wrong color. It looks like fire but it should be raven."

A pause. "Remy… you're not making any sense… Ah should get Hank. He told me to wake him if you came around."

Did she look scared? He couldn't figure it out.

"Ah'll be right back, Remy."

She walked out of his view then. He tried to turn to watch her go. Ouch. His head hurt. He didn't like the feeling. And his eyelids felt heavy. Well, if they wanted to close, there was no reason to fight them.

The bed was still hard and uncomfortable, but he managed to fall asleep anyway.

------

The next time Remy woke up things seemed to make much more sense. No one was around this time and he found himself left with only a TV for company. He looked over at Jean's bed. It was empty.

"I guess dat means she's all better," he said, to no one in particular. The sound of his voice sounded strange—like sandpaper. When was the last time he had spoken? Time had lost cohesiveness and he found himself stumped by the simple questions of the month, day, and year—let alone the hour.

A remote control was on the bed-stand next to him and he used it to turn on the small television that hung suspended from the ceiling in the corner of the room beyond the foot of his bed. The face of a reporter illuminated on the screen.

"The Mutant Registration Bill was passed today almost unanimously. I'm standing outside City Hall in New York City where a few protestors are gathered, demanding equal rights. There is a line of police separating them from a much larger crowd—those who have come to support the new set of laws we will soon see forcing all mutants to register with the government. A week and a half ago, this scene would have looked very different. Then, these two opposing sides would have carried roughly equal support. But in the wake of the terrible disaster in Greenwich Village, which authorities have blamed on mutant activity, the anti-mutant sentiment has become a majority feeling."

Remy pressed the remote control again and the reporter disappeared. He was starting to remember things—like what exactly had happened before he'd ended up here in this room, and it made him wish he were still asleep.

Mutant Registration. The words seemed to sear his ashen mind.

Would there be a war anyway? A war despite everything?

The thought made him sick. Sick so that he began retching dryly. And he couldn't stop, even when Hank came running into the room to see if he was okay.

------

They were gone. Finally. Remy sank back into the bed and sighed. Scott, Jean, and Hank had spent an hour talking to him, trying to get him to tell them what had happened. He described the Greenwich incident as best he could, while avoiding too much detail about Emily. He simply left it at, "This life force invaded my brain and helped me beat Shadow King."

They weren't really satisfied. Especially not Jean, mostly because she knew it was more complicated than that. She had been in his mind with Emily there at the very end of the battle.

But he wasn't ready to talk about it beyond that. And that was something they were eventually forced to accept.

Now finally they were all gone.

"Your brain is still recovering from the damage. For a while, even charging a card will be difficult."

Well, almost all gone. Remy looked up at the blue fur of Hank's face from the bed they were still confining him to. He was so tired of laying down.

"I ain't exactly worried 'bout chargin' cards right now."

"No, I'd imagine not. Your physical injuries are healing well, including the scar from the operation I did to repair some internal bleeding. You are lucky to be alive, frankly."

"Oui. Lucky." Remy responded sarcastically. When would Hank get the hint and leave him alone?

Hank gave him a hard look. "I'll need to run some more tests to monitor your progress before I can let you get up and about."

"More tests?"

"Yes. More tests."

Remy sighed again. "Dis ain't lucky."

------

Somehow, Remy knew Storm would find him here, sitting on the roof alone, staring out across the grounds of the Xavier Institute. It had been such a struggle to climb out of his bed and find his way to his room. It was night and the X-Men were sleeping. Even Hank had finally left him alone, after running test after test after test… But the stumbling down the halls in the Men's Wing had been worth it just to find some clothes to wear other than a hospital-style robe. He never thought he'd be so happy just to be wearing pants.

And if getting to his room had been hard, climbing onto the roof had been near impossible.

But again, it had been worth it.

Storm's footsteps were gentle as she approached, and were as familiar as the quiet snowfall, which left a momentary white dusting on the shingles before melting away. He wondered when the weather patterns of New York had become familiar to him, a Louisiana bayou boy.

Their meetings here seemed almost routine now. She seemed to know by instinct when he'd be here, and even more, when he needed her to be here too.

He was grateful for her presence, as she sat next to him, her body radiating warmth with the blanket of heat she created by her powers. Still he shivered. Even with her next to him, he felt alone.

His empathy was shot. Sometimes he was thankful, thankful that his mind was cut off from anything but Emily's lingering shadow. It was a feeling of bitterness, of mourning that made him want that.

But right now he wished so desperately that he could use it for just a moment, to feel the warmth of another human mind in his. Instead, he felt only cold.

"It is a beautiful evening," Storm said simply. No questions, no prodding.

He loved her patience with him.

The sun had fallen beneath the horizon about an hour ago, leaving the Xavier Institute in a hazy light provided by streetlamps that lined the surrounding paths, and the window lights still on inside.

"You ever feel alone, Stormy?" He looked at her, and she seemed about to speak, but he continued before she could, looking away again. "I mean really alone. Like you're seeing everyone around you through a glass wall and even touching them isn't real, even talking to them is like screaming inside a soundproof room where all you get are echoes."

He felt her staring at him, analyzing his expression—no, not analyzing. Storm didn't analyze, she felt. That was why he enjoyed her company so much.

Usually her doing this made him uncomfortable, but for some reason, it didn't now.

"When I was a child," she said, "after my parents died, I felt that I was alone. I felt forever trapped under that rubble, and that no one could ever reach me. Later I realized that wall of rubble wasn't real anymore; it was in my head. I knew then that I didn't have to be alone."

He turned to her, giving her a hard look. "You don't still feel alone?" he asked. She held his gaze for a moment, looked away. It was all he needed for an answer.

"I was afraid to use my power as an empath. Tol' myself I was respecting the privacy of others. Really, I was jus' afraid of touching anyone dat closely. Now all I want ta do is touch someone like dat."

"Your empathy is gone?"

"Yeah. Burned out. She told me it would heal and come back some day."

He saw Storm looking at him again, from the peripheral of his vision. "She?"

It occurred to him suddenly that Storm had no idea what he was talking about. He sighed, running his hands through his hair and resting his head in them, elbows on his bent knees. The touch of his own fingers felt cold to his skin. "Her name was Emily. She was from de future, an' she came back in time to stop de Human/Mutant War from starting. Was convinced I was de key to dat an' so since Antarctica she's been livin' in my head."

Ororo stared at him for a long moment. When she spoke, she said, "What happened to her?"

He paused. "She's dead. She signed her death warrant de day she came here, knew she could only survive so long like dat." He shook his head, impulsively. It was hard to miss her this much.

"I'm sorry, Remy."

He shrugged. Snow was beginning to cling to his clothes.

"And thank you."

He lifted his head and looked at her, surprised, raising an eyebrow. "F'r what?"

She smiled at him, a gesture that somehow felt comforting. "I have never heard you so honest and forthcoming before, even with me. It's… refreshing. Most people around here are suspicious of everyone these day."

He watched her eyes for a moment. They looked sad, and he could tell she was in a reflective mood, her lips set in a fine line and her mind far away. When she seemed to come back to herself, he nodded. "Dat de wall of rubble you were talkin' about?"

She smiled at him, this time a solemn gesture. "Yes."

"Hey, Stormy?"

"Yes?"

"Let's not have dat wall between us. K?"

"Okay, Remy."

"Good."

She was watching him, and she seemed somehow fragile to him. He wondered if he looked the same to her right now. There was a moment's hesitation before she leaned over and hugged him.

"This Emily, I can tell she meant something to you, my friend," she whispered, still embracing him.

He closed his eyes. "Oui."

"We have all lost loved ones along the way. I learned something else from my parents' death."

"What's dat?"

"It is much worse if you think the loss to be in vain. But you cannot let it be. Don't let Emily's loss be in vain either."

She let go then and looked at him. He realized she was crying.

"Stormy…" His voice came out quiet, tentative. "What is it?"

She shook her head fiercely. "A lot has happened while you have been asleep."

A knot seemed to form in his chest. "Tell me."

She smiled, then. A small, sympathetic smile. "No. Not now. Now is the time for you to consider your loss. There is time for the rest tomorrow." She stood quickly, before he could argue.

"Goodnight, Remy."

He knew there was no fighting her. "Night, 'Ro."

She was gone then and he was once again alone, wondering what it was that had her so distraught. Did he even want to know? He was glad in a way that she hadn't told him yet. She was right.

Now was Emily's time.

He looked out over the Xavier Institute, an establishment that envisioned the safe harboring, growth and development of mutants as well as the peaceful coexistence between all humanity—both Sapien and Superior. It was true that Remy had never been fully committed to Xavier's dream. He had felt a loyalty to the team, and believed that they did good things, but there was the part of him that never quite got fighting for people that hated you. He understood now.

Emily had died for that fight.

He closed his eyes, felt for the residual scent of her in his mind that became less and less every day, and he made a promise to her ghost.

Her death would never be in vain.

Finis

Well folks, it's been a long ride to get this far. Thanks so much to all of you that have stuck with me, and endured the infrequency of my updates to this story arc. You have no idea what your support has meant to me. There are more stories on the way, and with a little luck, the chapters will come much more frequently from here on out. This story has left many loose ends, but fear not, all will be tied up soon. I have two more stories planned before I even think of calling the Diamonds Arc complete. You should be seeing the next one start within the week. I debated putting the first chapter of it as an epilogue to this story, but I think that this is the place to end "Futures in the Mist." The sequel to this story is titled "Finalities in the Wind."

Thanks again for hanging around, and until the next story, happy reading!