Chapter 26: A Difference of One Life

Over the next three or four days, the X-Men slowly recovered. The three telekinetics were the hardest hit – they had been the ones holding the shield against the explosion that should have ended their lives. The infirmary was packed – the wire Angel had intended to spear Apocalypse with had been turned on him by Magneto, and he had a bad stab wound in his abdomen; Tabitha had fractured or broken almost every major bone when Magneto crushed the cars and had been put in a full-body cast by an overtaxed Jean; Scott had several broken ribs and third-degree burns on his legs; Storm had apparently been knocked out of the sky by Pyro and had her share of burns, plus a broken leg. Kitty, like Kurt, was mostly comatose in her own bed, suffering from whatever Apocalypse had hit them with in those final seconds. The rest of the team suffered scratches, burns, and sprains that had been haphazardly bandaged or just ignored to make time for helping others. Logan, who of course had healed the fastest, had somehow arranged a telepathic lesson with the barely-conscious Jean and had managed to fix most of the major wounds himself while everyone else was still exhausted or unconscious.

Sabere's strength slowly returned, but she only had healing energy for a few injuries per day. Like most of the X-Men, she often found herself suddenly dizzy and woke up on a couch somewhere with sun in her eyes. The news was constantly on somewhere, a few English-speaking stations reporting a jet previously connected to mutant terrorists that had entered and left New York after much fire and exploding. The rest of the world was not keen on entering the conflict on American soil, especially when most of their own efforts had been thwarted at home. The White House was an endless yammering battle on how to face this "new terror" without anyone ever suggesting anything.

The X-Men slowly began to accept that the only option was them.

By the start of the last week of February, almost everyone was recovered. Rain pounded the windows – nothing new – and Sabere studied the footage on the news endlessly, looking for weaknesses, possibilities, all the time knowing what their only option was.

Scott finally shut off the TV when Sabere woke for the second time around two in the morning, sprawled over the arm of a couch in the common room.

"Find anything?" he asked quietly, sitting down opposite her.

"Nothing we didn't already know. Scott," she insisted, "we need Xavier."

He sighed. "I guess – " He looked out the dark window, searching for words. "I know what it did to Jean, and I'm aware of what it could do to you and the rest of us. If this Phoenix wants to help, great, but – think of the consequences."

"My life for the world seems pretty fair."

"Unfortunately, it's not just about you. The Phoenix just wants to stay in a human body – "

"Jean told you that!"

" – and I've already told the others that if it takes control of you, if it endangers what we've been working for – you'll be killed."

She stared at him in shock. "You would do that?"

Scott shrugged and left the room.

-----

Later that morning, after trying to sleep through nightmares of betrayal, Sabere found herself back in the kitchen. The sunrise was invisible under clouds, and it would be another dark, gray, cloudy day.

The Phoenix paced her mind like a furious panther. It insisted, over and over, that it was to be trusted, that the X-Men would only kill her for helping them, that it alone had the strength to save them. Sabere simply sat in the quiet corner of her mind and wondered. Would she lose control? What would the Phoenix do to her if it did? And if it came to that – would they really kill her?

It's time to prove it, the Phoenix urged in her mind. Time to solve this. You know what the answer is.

She turned from the window and strode towards the elevators.

"Sabere." Kurt was waiting in the shadows by the stairs.

"I have to go." Her voice was mechanical and impatient, the words not hers. The Phoenix was ready – and it was getting angry –

Stop, please, just for a moment – I want my mind back –

She managed to stop her determined stride and turned back to face Kurt. "We both know healing Xavier is the only choice we have left. We need him – "

"' – to fight Apocalypse,' yes, the same thing, over and over." He paused, then turned away, eyes cold. "If you will not listen to me any more I have nothing left to say."

Not him! The possible betrayal of Scott or Jean she could accept, but Kurt, her love and anchor –

"Please, Kurt," she pleaded, finally shoving aside the Phoenix and letting out her own words for the first time in too long. "I know I haven't shown it, but I'm terrified. There's so much – we survived New York, which I had never dreamed would happen, but there's Xavier – and the Phoenix…. It loves being in a human body, Kurt. And I think…" She reached out and turned him back to face her. "It loves being loved. It came to me through my ability to heal, and the relationships that causes – and it saw other relationships, and saw how other people love."

"It does not love," Kurt muttered. "It is only here to do its will and then leave."

"Maybe, but it came to help Xavier – because so many people love him."

"And what about the rest of us? What about you? Why are you so confident it won't kill you like it did Jean? What if it likes your power and doesn't leave?"

Suddenly Sabere's mind was swamped with images and memories that were not hers – they were Jean's – the Phoenix had pulled them together, screaming, the power too…and Sabere saw Jean and Scott, Jean and Logan, Jean with her hand outstretched against the flood, knowing that her death was the only way to save her friends and resolve her tumultuous love.

The Phoenix came because Jean loved her friends enough to die for them – but the Phoenix let her die because Jean's love was not balanced, not resolved –

Not unwavering and dedicated like Sabere's and Kurt's.

The Phoenix would not kill her because her love was right.

Oh.

There is your answer, the Phoenix said wistfully. I had almost forgotten it myself.

And quite suddenly, Sabere was no longer confined to her distant corner, watching the world.

"Sabere?"

She shook her head, smiling, and flung her arms around him to kiss him more passionately and determinedly than ever before. "There's something I need to take care of." And she ran down the hall to the elevators.

"Sabere, wait!"

The doors opened, and Sabere half-expected Kurt to already be there, waiting. But the hallway was empty and silent. Sabere headed quietly towards where Xavier lay in the infirmary.

She stood alone in the solemn room, watching dust float through the single light that cast on Xavier's inert body. Stepping silently forward, she laid her fingertips on his forehead, watching them glow orange as the power yearned to being work. Awareness grew in here – she felt cells, life itself, speaking to her, binding her, spreading her across a miniscule, vital world –

She sensed Kurt enter the room behind her, tense but surrendering. "Do you know what you are doing?" he asked softly.

Sabere looked up at the light and felt it wash across her face and shoulders in a rush of the Phoenix's fire. The words that left her throat were hers, but the voice was the power's – she only hoped he understood it, because she didn't know when she'd be able to say anything else.

"I love you, and that's all you need to remember."

-----

The Phoenix wrapped around her and soon all there was in the world was her power and Xavier's disease. Fire coursed through her fingertips, rushing through the cells of his mind, feeling each and every one on a level far deeper than anything she had worked before. They glowed, radiated, pulsating a light that was entirely Xavier and his power. This kind of focus took energy, and vaguely Sabere felt sweat on her mortal forehead and realized she was already exhausted by these few exploratory seconds.

No time for fear.

She let her eyes flutter closed and saw the damage of the tumor through an orange haze. It was huge, black and sickly, like a blob of tar stuck to the immaculateness of Xavier's mind. Stuck, and tearing away, eroding – but worse, destroying. But she never believed that the damage was permanent – the Phoenix was too determined. The cells rallied to the fire's call, and as she pushed her healing energies forward, the tar-tumor writhed and convulsed. Healthy cells pushed in around it, displacing it, eating away chunks of it. It grew smaller and smaller – the fire coursed through her hands and she was sure they were burned – and carefully, cell by cell, she rebuilt Xavier's mind.

Electricity and memories and mortal cells all swirled in a myriad wave of rebuilding. The Phoenix knew what was missing from Xavier's psyche, just like Sabere's powers knew where and how to place the cells and extract this filth that had grown in this most amazing mind. Brick by multidimensional, powerful brick, the tumor was replaced until Sabere and the fire were standing in the clean, white, health of the mind.

It is done.

Thank you.