Title: Make This Go On Forever
Author: freak-pudding
Disclaimer: X-Men and all associated articles are the property of 20th Century Fox, Marvel Comics, and Stan Lee. No copyright infringement intended.
Summary: She's asking him to make the choice she couldn't, forcing them into something they'll never get over. "Please, Jean," he begs. "Please, don't do this."
Author's Notes: Ending of X2, redone, that morphed into something more. Because "she made a choice" wasn't good enough. Jean's back-story cribbed from the X3 novel, and from the info on Wikipedia. I've never read the comics, but I've read plenty of info on them. Will more than likely mix movie, book, and comic canon. This is the first of three separate parts, each of different length. They will be posted as completed.
Then
The death that greets her is swift and cold, an emerald froth before the devastating crush of ice and foam. The water closes quickly in a gorgeous cascade around her willing body, engulfing the flame that fills her eyes, and Jean lets go.
She opens her eyes to a volley of gold, sunshine that burns through her skull, through the mat of her sweat-soaked hair, glimmering off the edge of a bubble-gum pink Frisbee slicing through thick summer air to her outstretched hand.
Jean knows exactly where she is.
Summertime, weekend maybe, the stench of grass clippings and motor oil and orange sherbet hanging thick in the air, viscous, almost liquid, and she has to choke just to take another breath. Ten years old, hair flying in frayed pigtails, a game of Frisbee with Annie Malcolm at the far end of Palmer Park, sandal-shod feet slipping over cypress chips and red-gold geraniums.
The disc is feather-light in her hand, and she flicks it back to Annie with an absentminded flutter of the delicate muscles in her arm. She grins, pausing, hair whipping around her face, Annie giving a shout as she races to the catch.
Annie vaults backward, ever gangly and awkward in her growing body, tongue pinched between teeth in severe concentration, eyes focused on the wisp of pink floating toward her. Competitive to a charming fault, she arcs back, feet leaving the ground in a fantastic leap as she sails over cement and flowerbed and curb. Jean gives a whoop as the rim of the disc grazes Annie's fingers.
It's over before she can blink.
She'll describe it later as only an evil green, hulking and shiny—too shiny—a goddamn disco ball on wheels, roaring away down the avenue. She sees so much in a span of seconds, milliseconds, Annie's harsh blue glare of triumph, the wide white circles of the driver's frightened eyes, broken antennae like a razor-thin bayonet, the gleam of sun in Annie's hair, the caress of ivory that is her wrist whipping around the Frisbee. The crush of sickly sweet summer air, sticking her throat closed, and though she's certain it's dead silent, they'll tell her later the scream was heard for blocks, unlike the gun blast of the car hitting Annie hitting the ditch. The line of her body arcing across the sky is a perfect mirror of her hand, moments ago, delicately scooping the Frisbee from the air.
Jean screams, mouth wide, but the breath is ripped from her body, a crushing impact that shatters her ribcage, flattens her lungs, slices her heart.
There is a split-second of indecision from the driver; he taps the brakes, once, twice, the banshee scream of rubber scraping over sun-baked cement. His dog-black eyes, perched in a featureless face, flicker to Jean's, and then he's slamming on the accelerator, spraying gravel over the ditch where Annie fell.
For a moment, she is back in Canada, a torrent of ice and fire consuming, collapsing, the fleeting thought of an energy shell that disintegrates from muddled green to the harsh hot of white-gold, soft blue mountains to the vast stretches of browning grass back home, the curve of the road behind the park, the valley gouged behind a crumbling dam.
The moment that follows, a second or an eternity, is inconsequential in its passing except that she is free. She is drowning in a myriad of crystalline memories, thoughts, screams; she gasps, the poison absinthe flooding her lungs, coalescing, her blood boiling, rising in steam that melts the edges of her body. This is death; this is Annie, laughing, arcing out to scoop up the errant pass, the panic in the driver's eyes, the cracking of cement and rebar and old stone. This is her death, and it is beautiful.
Ten-year-old Jean stumbles across the road, back exploding in pain, sobbing, falling, tooth chipping against the road, jeans splitting at the knee as she scrambles up. She is flooded with a feeling of crimson, deep, dark, blossoming across the soft petals of her torn flesh as she staggers to Annie's side.
The prairie behind the park has been a vacant lot for years; she and Annie had giggled with orgiastic joy at the thought of the stores that would soon occupy it. That was her childhood: Barbies and Sears and hair dryers, tree houses and thrones of sticks, crowns of weeds, grammar and multiplication and the simple, essential truth of Boy Cooties. She can feel that world collapsing, ripping like a fresh scab in lines of fire from her soul as she tumbles over the side of the ditch, sliding through a cloud of dust to the happenstance pile of steel and cement crumbs.
Annie lies, spread-eagled, bent backwards over the top of the pile, a strip of exposed skin peeking from the hem of her purple shirt. One hand, fingers curled, stretches high above her head, clawing at air. The Frisbee lies solitary, a few feet beyond her grasp.
She and Annie had been inseparable as long as either could remember, neighbors since birth. Every moment was shared, day camp and sleepovers and roller-skating, first bike rides and ballet lessons and soccer games at family reunions. Annie is brown hair and blue eyes and round cheeks, rosy skin, a spray of freckles across her nose, the hint of beauty to come—the perfect counterpoint to Jean, in red hair and riotous clothes, both carefree and wild.
Jean kneels beside Annie's head, skidding the last few inches in the gravel, hands shaking, face tracked with tears. The pain in her back flares, angry and white-hot, and she gasps as it's joined by her arm, throbbing, broken, the edges ice cold around a molten center. She clutches at it, fingers squeezing, gulping at the pollen-strewn sludge, air like crude oil coating her tongue. She gasps Annie's name over and over, a desperate mantra, a beggar's soundless cry before unyielding truth.
She sees the lilac bruise on Annie's arm, the fountain of red spilling from her side, fingers still squeezing her own arm and Jean realizes with a start that her arm isn't broken at all, Annie's is, awkward, twisted around the wrong way, wrinkles of flesh forming a purple spiral.
She gulps again, crying, but there's no sound, and she knows she's forgotten to breathe, forgotten how to breathe, and she's rocking, reeling, mind a thousand thoughts a second, God this hurts hurts hurts HURTS and why isn't anyone coming we were just tossing the Frisbee I never heard it coming never heard him coming what's going on I can't see so dark it HURTS Mom Mom Mommy I want my mom where's Jean why can't I see her—
And Jean screams, fists pressing against her ears, nails gouging marks the doctor will tell her are a quarter-inch deep, trying to press her head between the tips of four bony fingers.
There's a mother back in the park watching her son in the wading pool wonder if I paid the bills, a man buying ice cream fucking kids all over the goddamn place, a sullen boy against the tree never wanted to play with 'em anyway—
"Stop!" she orders them, a whisper-scream, falling onto her side, eyes screwed open, filming over with grit and overexposure, and her gaze locks on Annie's.
Her friend is sightless now, eyes glazed, the barest flexing of her fingers hinting at life, but when she hears Annie call her name without speaking, Jean feels a whoosh of fire through her body. She knows on some strange level that the pain she feels is Annie's pain, the thoughts flooding her mind are not her own, and her fingers move by themselves, unfolding, sliding along the sides of Annie's blood-soaked head, flitting over the edges of her fractured skull.
She has only one moment to think—just relax—and suddenly she's inside.
And, oh God, it's beautiful—Annie's beautiful—laid bare, a gold-black spider web weaving endlessly onward, sparks and chasms and tributaries of light and sound, and Jean slides along in awe, infinitely small and yet larger than anything she's ever known. She flails, grasping, a whitewash of Annie's memories, purple and red and stained with life, translucent, the highlights of a brief existence. Little girl, green shirt, red hair, laughing, hand throwing in slow motion and ohmyGod that's her, Annie's thinking of today—the park and the Frisbee and Jean. She leans further, presses her formless face against the glow of Annie's mind, like a bath of cool water against burning skin.
And she sees now that she is burning, glowing, a molten core of light that radiates outward in slow waves, pulsing, red and squirmy—contrast to the soft blue-gray ripple of Annie, evanescent threads evaporating in tiny particles. Further down and further in, and it's recitals and cookie baking, the beach and swimming and her brother's baseball cards, the swirl of events, memories, all one-sided, and Jean feels a twinge of love when she realizes that so many of Annie's treasured memories involve her.
The park again, outside, and Jean has only a moment to feel the cool rim of the Frisbee, the crack of the car against Annie's hip that explodes in a burst of white.
It ends in the tree house, their tree house; Jean's standing on the edge of the platform, looking down at the multihued yarn ball that is Annie's mind, instead of the green-gray forest she'd expected.
"You shouldn't be here."
She whirls around. Annie crouches in the corner, rail-thin, wearing her favorite Sunday clothes, a bright blue dress she wore to her great aunt's funeral a few months ago.
"Annie!"
Jean's cry is ecstatic, and she launches herself across the floor, arms wide in cheerful greeting.
"You can't be here!"
Annie scrambles in the corner, against the wall, arms flailing in defense, halting Jean four steps away.
"Annie, I'm—the car; you're—"
And she recognizes now the difference, the callous sunburst heat of herself, tall and gold and glowing, against the softer hues of Annie, the dim flashing of blue and green, like dying carnival lights.
"Oh, Annie, you can't—"
"No, Jean, it's too late—"
"Don't say that!" she screams, and white flares from her outstretched arms, an arc of energy that snaps across the space between them. The sapphire glow of Annie brightens with the connection.
Jean stands a moment, stunned, and the arc splinters into a thousand brilliant diamond glints.
In the dust beneath a beating sun, mouth thick with summer air and blood, Annie gives a soft whimper.
"I can help," Jean whispers.
Annie shakes her head.
"I can help!"
The energy arcs out again, flaring bright, obliterating the abyss between them, a perfect ribbon of pink-hued life sliding from Jean to Annie.
"See?" Jean cries. "See? I can fix it!"
Annie watches from the corner, head shaking.
"You can't. Not enough to make it better."
"Yes I can!"
They've met each other blow-for-blow before, but Annie's always been a bit more stubborn.
"Ain't gonna work."
"Yes, it will. Watch me!"
"No, Jean," Annie says quietly, rising. "Watch me."
Obstinacy and competitiveness combined pulse gold and red and orange, flickering, roaring with the fires of anger and adrenaline. Annie'd always been the stronger, and it shows in what little of her is left—a pulsing blue glow encompassing a ball of pure white, the edges boiling away, but the glare is brighter, heavier than Jean's whole body. Annie is a supernova in reverse, and Jean gives a cackle of triumph.
"It's working!" she says. "Look, I can save you!"
"Look at yourself."
Annie waves an arm, a flutter of atoms and nebulae, towards the galaxy of Jean's soul, and Jean finally looks down at her own diminishing light.
"You don't have enough," Annie says. "Not for the both of us."
It slams her, then, a wall of reality three hundred feet high, five million metric tons of water, a thousand pound car crashing into her side, a shattering of bone and muscle and soul.
"I can fix it," Jean whispers, inside and out, angry tears mixing with Annie's blood. It dribbles from their joined hands, disappearing into the dust and rubble below.
And there's something new about Annie, something infinitely older and stronger, as she crosses the short distance of the tree house floor.
"You have to let me go, Jean."
"I won't. I'll fix it."
The defiance of her crossing arms is a child's defiance, a paltry gesture against the oblivion gathering behind Annie's head. Jean stares her friend down, chin raised, ready to match the determination in Annie's eyes.
"Can you?"
Annie's voice is softer, the edges of the tree house crumbling away. The blackness beyond is infinite, a funnel of pure terror that will follow her footsteps for decades.
"Can you make everything better?" Annie asks. "Can you fix all of me that's broken?"
The arm waves again, towards Annie this time, a rippling of stars and systems evaporating at the edges. She glows with Jean's energy, but they can both see it's not enough, not really—the edges of Annie grow darker and more translucent, fading.
Jeans peers closer, at the tendrils of connection, between her and Annie, between Annie and everything, spider-thread wisps of body and soul splintering delicately, chain-reaction, driving deeper and deeper, and Jean can see that the more she gives, the worse it gets. The strands of Annie's life split at the tips, spiraling ever faster, and then she understands.
"Can you?" Annie demands. "Can you save me?"
There is quiet all around them, in the haven of Annie's mind, outside, under a burning sun, the prelude to discovery and chaos. Jean draws a breath, unsteady, swaying on throbbing heels.
"I don't know how."
But Annie knows this already; she smiles, soft, and it's there again—that sense that she's seen and done what she can't have, won't ever have the chance to, but it's there, that feeling of life and wisdom that so surpasses Jean.
"Let me go, Jean," she says.
"I can't. I can't just—"
"I can," Annie replies, and then it's over again.
Annie rushes forward, arms snapping around Jean's body, a stiff hug that presses their minds together, and then Annie's pushing out and through, returning what was so hopelessly given. The tree house collapses around her head, a rush of noise and static and the vortex of Annie's soul winks out of existence, a pinprick of light left on the television screen when she turns it off.
Blackness descends, and Jean lifts her arms feebly, trying to hold it all back.
The crush of Alkali Lake obliterates her, her life wiped suddenly away, almost as though she was never there at all—just like Annie, that split-second flash between life and death, between her body and the car, between Jean and the fire and the mountain of water.
She feels the scrape of the ground as she is pushed along it, skin sliding from her arms, bursts of white-hot fire from her leg, her neck, her back. Adamant, free, she watches her life flit away through the sun-speckled flow.
She stares, unseeing, the radiant flames of her life fizzling to embers, and the world slows around her, the soft pull and tug of a foolish body trying to survive. She floats silently, accepting.
All of it is gone in a flash—a sharp tug, a sudden jolt, claws scratching at her arm, thick fingers closing around her wrist. A whiff of ozone, a sudden change of scenery, and then the sharp crack of her leg snapping beneath her as she and Kurt spill over the deck of the Blackbird, choking up rivers of sludgy water across the muddied floor.
Voices shout her name as her shaking arm bats back the students' helping hands; black hair and red-shielded eyes swarm down. The sun is white and angry beyond her shield of jade-spackled death. Fingers circle her wrist, and she drops away from the world, sinking into the black of oblivion, realizing on some level that she has failed.
What she knows after this is fragmented, piecemeal, a collage of words and numbers and signs: Logan at the foot of her bed, Scott standing stiffly by her head, speaking to each other in sieved whispers. They are arguing about her.
In the interim, her head is filled with jittering insects—snapping, biting, clawing, a whirlwind of galaxies and souls, and she winces inside at every touch.
Logan's voice comes in crimson tides, blood-stained, feral, fierce and loyal and full of a darker knowledge than he can name.
"Just 'cause you two're so fucking blind don't mean—"
Scott is blue—high, cold, self-effacing and self-aggrandizing, a back and forth between her lover and their leader, always at odds with what he can't control.
"You think you have any right to tell us—"
"Said it yourself, Chuck! She made a choice!"
The professor, gray, old, world-weary, crumbling at the edges. White hat, white hair thinning on the crown of his head, so confident and supreme and unyielding. She wonders if he's ever slouched in his life.
"I don't need to explain myself! Least of all to you!"
Everything's changed now, Logan versus Scott and Charles in the professor's office, voices carrying the length of five mahogany halls, students huddled anxiously in the doorway. And there's anger—such anger—seeping through the plush carpet, the carefully patterned Persian rugs, down through bricks and steel and specially molded plastic, filtering through her oxygen mask, bright red veins of rage, swirling in a mist between three powerful men, three ideas and ideals that threaten to swallow her whole. She gasps, wheezes, blinks her eyes a moment, but it's over; Logan cedes, turning and pushing through the crowd of children, a fierce, unfamiliar righteousness rippling in his wake.
And Ororo stroking her hand is really Annie, gentle, calming, blood streaming down her face in a scarlet waterfall. It pitters from her chin in tiny, immaculate drops, and Jean peers closer, at the space between the connections of cells and protein and little motes of dust, down deep, her body infinitely small as she is consumed in the intricate dance of electron and atom and energy. The glow blinds her, momentarily, and then it's shifting, she's shifting, moving out, molecules reforming, realigning themselves. Annie's blood becomes water, raindrops that impact dirt in a sonic boom, a mushroom cloud reaction billowing up from below.
Pull back further; it's raining, outside, a door and stairs and a girl perched on the stairs, folded in on herself, crying, gloved fingers rubbing back and forth over denim-clad knees.
It comes as a taste first, a smell, cayenne and chocolate and boiled chickpeas, a feeling that slides along her throat to the form of a whispered word, lost in translation before it ever leaves her lips.
Marie.
Platinum streaks hanging in her eyes, the rest in a sloppy bun at the back of her neck, Marie sniffles, picking a scab along the crease of her arm.
Logan enters from behind, a door opening and closing to a flash of heat and laughter inside. She sees only the boots, the bottom half of his legs beside Marie, and Jean realizes with a start that she isn't even there, a voyeur into a moment she doesn't understand.
Logan sighs then, resounding, air rattling through his lungs as he drops his bag, drops his body heavily beside Marie.
He opens his mouth to speak but doesn't, staring out at the veil of rain, the iron curtain of water that shields him from the world. It's a separation of his self, the welcome and love and need of home against the sweat stench of fear, the running, the bag slumped wearily against his thigh. Jean feels a whisper, an ethereal scream of warning, but then Marie sniffs loudly, sucking in mucus and air and trying to ignore the tears that mimic the sky.
It smells cold and green out here; Jean can feel the rush of air through Logan's body, tendrils of warmth in the chill, the first of the end of spring. A hint of sunlight, white dappled gold, muted, dim, stained, the blue-gray of soaked ashes, the color of Logan's shirt peeking from the edge of his tattered leather jacket.
"Y'know," Logan begins, awkward. "This isn't a forever kind of thing."
He dares a glance at her but gets nothing. Marie's eyes are soft and black and dead, staring hollowly down the fog-shrouded drive.
"I'm gonna come back, Marie. This thing with Scott and the professor—"
He waves his hand, dismissive, stirring the mists of anger that plaster the house, the mutants huddled inside.
"It won't be that long. Y'know? Just let 'em cool down awhile."
He's looking at her now, studying her lack of reaction, mouth turned down at the corners in that half-a-frown he has when he's too confused to be angry.
"C'mon, Marie, it won't be so—"
"Just go if you're going."
The words are so small, a stream of hot air escaping into a vast space, the tiny pecking of little fingers against a thick glass of the unspoken, and Logan looks almost wounded.
He recovers a moment later, swinging one arm behind her back, pulling her body towards his, lips against her hairline. She stiffens reflexively, then relaxes, sobbing now, gangly arms flailing, wrapping around his back.
"I'll come back," he whispers into her hair. "I promise."
And she nods her assent into his chest, breathing deep, tobacco and mud and a wild, fierce smell that can only be Logan, only the Wolverine, howling his nightmares into the dark.
It's over almost as soon as it began; Logan chokes, rising swiftly, breaking away from Marie as he grabs his bag and leaves. His walk down the driveway is hunched and quick, running fast before it ties him down.
He's terrified of cages.
Jean wakes a few days later, bored with unconsciousness, acquiescing, facing her failure.
Scott is smiling, the skin at the sides of his glasses crinkling with fear and relief and the bitter salt of happy tears as he holds her tight. Jean buries her face beneath his chin, snuggling, mimicking Marie in an unthinking way, feeling a twinge of regret when all she smells is cedar and Old Spice and the crisp snap of devotion.
The arms that welcome her back are wide and strong and loving, and she tells herself this is good as the embrace consumes her.