A/N: I would like to note that I wrote this chapter quite a bit ago; well before the Selene arc came along in the comics and utilized Blink. Be warned, this chapter is graphic.

( Volume: 4 Arc: "not this again" 4 Issue: 4/5 )

Chapter 148 : fear

Later that night, Julian was the one to bolt upright, look around, then reach out to the wardrobe, his eyes glowing. Laura watched him, feeling a small, surprising sense of loss;
she was so used to going with him by now that it felt strange to lay in bed while he struggled to step into his boots, throwing his pajamas around the room in a sleep-bewildered fashion.

"Where?" she asked, her voice small.

Julian paused. "Madison Square Gardens," he said, his voice weary.

Laura swallowed. She knew that there was a large conference being held their the next day. If the team failed…

The results could be disastrous.

And she didn't want him to go, she realized, seeing him finish zipping up the front. He was fragile, he'd be killed so easily…don't be paranoid. He leaned over the bed, kissed her forehead
quickly, then ran for the door. Moments later, a sharp crack! resounded through the air as he left Laura behind (although she could hear the roar for a while afterward, thanks to her hearing range).

…

The next morning, as Laura was preparing the toddler's breakfast (creamed cereal and fruit), Nate suddenly became agitated, followed by Rachel, whose eyebrows drew together.

"Where Joo?" Nate asked.

Laura closed her eyes. Despite the fact that one parent was often off somewhere—especially when they had been at school—they had always made an effort to sit down at breakfast together
with the Shrimps, having agreed that it was important to have family time (since neither of them had that as children; Julian's being elsewhere, conducting business; while Laura simply didn't
have a family). This was the first time (not counting Laura's abduction) that they had broken the pattern.

"Julian's doing something important," she said, pouring the cereal into small bowls with happy faces painted around the edges. Nate's had a large chip on the edge from some mishap or another
(in his earlier stage of life, the boy had used it as a helmet and pretended to be a soldier).

"Weeeally?" Nate's eyes were round in his little patterned face. "What's impowtant mean, mum?"

"It means that he's out being a fireman," Laura said, figuring that would explain the situation to Nate (who had become fascinated with firefighters, possibly because of their old squad uniforms).

"Weeeally?" Nate paused. "You mean…he fightin' bad guys?"

"Yes." Laura poured in a little bit of milk, paused, then felt generous and added a bit more. Nate loved milk.

"I wan' go too!" Nate said. "I can help Joo!"

Laura brought the bowls over, moving slowly so as not to spill them (slower than normal, because her joints were still stiff and jerky). "You're too little, Nate."

"No I not!" Nate said, raising his voice. "I wan' go! I make bad guys sweep!"

Laura put Nate's bowl in front of him, then ruffled his hair. The boy was only technically a year and a half old (with his healing factor, about three years), but he had an astonishingly thick head
of black hair, that twirled up in all sorts of weird patterns (including a large curl at the back of his head).

"Uh-huh," she said affectionately. She didn't like to think about this little boy getting involved in the horrible war going on outside her house—the war he'd come close to being a part of, just a few months ago.

Her heart froze to think about it.

"Weally!" Nate said fiercely.

"Eat breakfast, we'll talk later," Laura said. She glanced at the TV (which had been playing lowly in the background) as the Shrimps began to dig into their food. Nate had just realized the bowl was
in front of him and had begun to tear in, followed by Rachel in a much meeker manner.

"And now, more on the situation happening at what was Madison Square Gardens—a warning to our viewers, the scenes you are about to see are extremely graphic."

Laura did freeze, her eyes wide, as she took in the images on the screen. An aerial shot, from a helicopter, of Madison Square Gardens. The structure looked as if a knife had swept over it, cutting
the top off. It was filled and surrounded by thousands of bodies in an enormous puddle of blood.

The camera moved slowly to take it all in.

"It happened suddenly, at nine AM this morning. Surviving witnesses say that a female mutant, about twenty years of age, suddenly appeared on the stage in a diamond-shaped flash of light, stood behind
the speaker and shouted a warning that she could 'not control it any longer'. A moment later, a concussive force washed over the entire stadium, causing the horrible destruction we are seeing now. Reports of survival are…"

…

"Calm down, Laura," Nori said, touching her friend's hand, which was shaking slightly. "I'm sure he's okay. If you haven't noticed, it's impossible to kill Julian…no matter how hard I've crossed my fingers."

Laura took a shuddering breath.

"Bad joke, bad joke," Nori said, wincing. "I meant that in the most comforting way possible, I swear."

"I know." Laura tilted her head back. "It's just one thing after another…god, I knew things were too good to be true, that something had to go wrong…I mean, before all this trouble started, I knew."

Nori patted her hand sympathetically.

The ready room door opened, suddenly, and Emma peered in. "The team survived. Although one member was mortally wounded and is in the infirmary, Julian is fine. Perhaps a little battered. They are
enroute and should be returning in approximately five minutes."

…

"Laura…broken ribs," Julian wheezed, curling away from her arm as she sought to squeeze the life out of him (or so he thought). He was covered in blood, soot and cuts from the structural collapse that
had followed the shard of light; and a structural beam had hit his back on its way down, cracking a few ribs on impact and shattering his right elbow. It was now in a sling.

She didn't respond, except to squeeze tighter.

"I'm fine, really," he said, using his good arm to pat her back. The one that didn't cause a stab of pain when he moved it. "Laura—c'mon—"

"Hellion…debriefing," Scott said from the background, also looking worse-for-wear, but intact. He paused. "Laura can come if she wants."

"I don't think I could come otherwise," Julian said with difficulty, trying to pry the girl off his torso.

…

"Her name was Clarice Ferguson, the mutant known as Blink," Scott said, his voice grave. "She was a friend of the X-men. She's fought with us before…it's a long, complicated story…as most things here are.
I'm really not sure if this is even the Blink I met personally. Whole thing with converging realities. But let it be said that she was a good girl, and that I'm sorry to see her dead."

The team stared back at their leader silently, sitting around the long metal table. a few of Julian's team—Josh and Cessily—were mixed in with more senior members, all of whom wore the same somber expression.

More loss.

"What happened…well, we know what happened. Blink was a mutant with the ability to teleport herself, objects, and other people, by using shard-shaped portals. She would throw the portal at the target, and it
would close around them, teleporting them anywhere she chose, even as far as the moon. Well, that's what happened here, all right." He paused. "Clarice was the latest victim of the Legacy virus. She teleported
Madison Square Gardens to God-knows-where—well, anything above the height of four feet."

Julian closed his eyes. It had all been so sudden. "GET DOWN!" Scott had shouted from the front, suddenly; he'd been confident he could shield himself from whatever was coming, but Wolverine had been behind
him. The older man had grabbed him by his head and yanked him down with him; the shard had suddenly blinked over the air space an inch above his scalp, sheering off some of his hair in the process, despite his
being enclosed in a telekinetic shield.

He'd come so close to being cut in half, for real. He had realized this as he lay on the ground, his heart hammering in his chest, with a big splash of blood from the people standing next to him slapped across his face
and the weight of the pillar on his arm, his shield having been dropped in shock. His unbelieving eyes had seen several half-torsos thud to the ground, unbalanced; a little three-year-old girl had backed away,
frightened—still holding a now-severed arm with an attached hand—as her fathers' legs had buckled and tilted forwards to reveal organs.

"Christ," Logan had hissed, not missing a beat. "Get that fuckin' kid, Keller!"

Julian had been slow to respond at first, then he saw the girl's face crumple, and this helped to clear his mind. He knew what to do when he saw toddlers crying, at least. Dragging himself up, he started talking to
the girl, who only seemed more frightened, but when he managed to pick her up (shaking the severed hand out of her tight little grip), she was babbling about Sesame Street to him.

In the X-wing, Josh had healed her for shock.

…

"Her mom's coming for her tomorrow," Julian said, looking at the small child, who was holding a stuffed animal (a bear) and asking Emma a question. Emma, who had just removed the tainted memories from the
little girl's mind. "Scott figured she'd be best off with us."

Laura gazed at the toddler.

"That could have been you," she said. "Holding her hand, and then…not."

Julian didn't feel like telling her just how close he had come. "It wasn't. Let's go home. I'm tired. I want to rest, and sleep, and then wake up and kill the goddamn son of a bitch that did this."

Laura said nothing.