RED

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6 days earlier:
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She heard voices coming and going as they pleased, and hope she did not sink to the land of dreams again, after all the ropes that attached her to there were clipped so long before, brutally and with her full consent. She wanted to get up from the bed but her limbs were too heavy for her mind to have full control on, and besides, what awaits her outside of her door? Why should she want to get up when she's so content here, safe and warm and loved?

But reality has a tendency to barge in, has she mentioned it before? Fate's slaves have descended from the heaves to bring her more bad news. Scott's missing, they told her, and they don't know where he is. They tried, they promised. But he's gone.

And she heard their voices and thought of the one voice that is missing, the professor's. He could have helped them, she knew it. If he'd only fought hard enough to stay alive. If they only meant more to him, if only... if only life had a greater pull than death.

"What do you offer we should do?" she heard her voice out in the open and was surprised by how steady it sounded, how uncaring. As if she didn't care about him at all, as if she cared enough to be clear mined through it, to want to find him.

"We wanted... if you could ask Logan. ." and she knew in that instant what they were asking. The hate between the 2 man was obvious to all, the friendship- well hidden. Behind bigotry and norms. They thought that it would take her to beg Logan for him to want and find Scott. They didn't know him well as she did, but then again, nobody knew him well as she did, including himself. Only the outside observer that touched another heart from within, who experienced another soul by its strings and had the power to cut it, yet chose to seal them whole instead, only she could know the true essence of a person. And she was all of the above, she has chosen Logan to live in the moment she had full power over his life. She's not proud of it and it's something none of them talk about.

Something none of them will. Some secrets are better to stay buried forever, even after eternities will pass. For why should healed wounds be reopened? What purpose will it serve?

"I'll ask him" she promised and knew that if she knows her husband as well as she thinks she does, then he's already on Scott's trail. That's the kind of relationship they've had, all the 3 of them. So bitter and painful yet very real. They never pretended hate anymore where there was love, and the 3 of them were a shape that couldn't be whole with just 2. Maybe that's why Scott and she couldn't make it. How can two make a perfect triangle?

The moment they've left she begged the gods who didn't know she worshipped them for the safety of the one she loves. She didn't put labels- the one she loves the most for it would be a lie, and if she tells it to herself enough time, she might believe it. And that time when she did believe it, well, it isn't a place she wants to come back to.

Peter was born at the 8th of September. Just a minute before the day ended. Just a minute after the end of the world.

She remembers holding him, so young and innocent, and hating him. She felt so wrong, a mother should love her child, doesn't she? But she couldn't. His sight reminded her everything that she wanted to forget, everything that she yearned that wasn't a part of her life. It was so easy, to just leave him right there, screaming, and to think of nothing but of the darkness that consumed her.

In time she became to be aware of strong hands taking him away from her, to wash him, to tend for him, but she couldn't make herself care. She was swayed by a world of ghosts that danced around her, her mind reaching to the center of the earth, calling for the lava to come and take her with it. She floated through minds and stones, never staying long enough to care, never leaving soon enough to not remember.

She danced in the body of a young dancer, so fragile and terrified from the big bad world that awaited her around the corner. One dance was all that she allowed herself, one handshake, one fuck. She experienced the entire universe while her body was rotting on a bed in the 3rd avenue of the real world.

When she slept, she dreamt of others, or maybe she never even dreamt and it was real. Perhaps there weren't her dreams anymore, perhaps her body wasn't hers. There was so much that called her out there, she ought only to reach out and touch it-

Yet she stayed in bed, crying as if something in her just died.

The nice nurse tried to speak to her in the beginning. She only turned her head away.

"My name is Susan; I'm here to help you."

But no one could help her any longer. She couldn't help herself.

Susan never gave up, even though she probably should have. And Jane was grateful that she hasn't, even though it was the only emotion left tin her. Then Susan began mentioning psychiatrist help, and though there wasn't much that she cared of anymore, this much she apparently did. A lost memory of worst times appeared in her shredded mind, begging not to be sent back to hell.

But she has befriended Satan already, how much worse can his kingdom be?

Yet in a growing mix of desperation of vengeance, she touched Susan's hand and let herself be sucked into a dream. Where she had a nice house with a mortgage, a nice husband and 3 happy children, who sometimes fought over TV.

And it was so close, so easy, to just sink further away.

There were no nights anymore. No suns. Day by day she could feel a small weight being lifted from her hands, being taken care of and then being returned to her, as if she cared. She looked at her baby with glazed eyes, and thought of someone else's children, of someone else's life. As if it was normal. As if she was still sane.

But then Logan was there. And he picked Peter to his arms in an almost paternal affection, and hissed to her ear:" he's a beautiful boy."

It shouldn't have made her so happy to hear him compliment her, but it did. It broke something in the mask of apathy that she didn't seem to be able to lower before. But now she could, and she could suddenly hear her son, not of the annoying baby that was given to her, but of something of hers and Scotts. Hers.

Scott was a deserter, and she vowed in that moment not to hate her son for his father's sins.

"Yes, he is."

"I'm sorry about Charles."

"So was I." she swore she wouldn't be bitter, but what do vows one tells himself matter?

"They are worry about you."

"You were worried about me."

"I was worried about you." And just like that, it seemed as if everything that was ever needed to be said, was already out in the open. Speaking may be a strong purifier, but silence can be just as powerful. And sometimes even more.

"Don't leave." she begged from Logan. Even though she knew it was wrong. Even though nothing was right in her world anymore, but his presence there- it felt natural. As if Peter wanted him to be there.

As if she knew what she wanted.

And he didn't question her, didn't act surprised. Only looked her straight in the eyes and reached out his hand. "Ok."