Note: Alcatraz concludes here. Throughout this story I have tried to stick as close as possible to the actual movie where scenes overlapped. Up until now, I think I did a fair job of that. But here, well, no. I just could not make the second half of the Alcatraz fight work at all. It was just too ... lame. So, this is totally different. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I still don't own X-men

Oh, and very brief language warning here -- only included because there's been so very little swearing in this, but Logan just needed that word.

Chapter Fifteen

Marie bit back a cry as the orderly's thoughts assaulted her. His shock at being punched slammed into her first. The need to pick up laundry for his wife, worry about the kids' report cards and fights in school followed. Then, his name -- Edgar. Under it all Edgar's deep fear of mutants rumbled.

Edgar's invasion excited the other personalities she'd absorbed. Magneto's dark fears growled and Bobby's confused love clung to her momentarily. She struggled with John's fears of inadequacy. Logan's presence steadied her. He led her to her combat lessons.

Keep aware of your surroundings. It's okay to be afraid, but not to panic. Keep moving. She had to keep moving.

Edgar's collapse broke their contact and with it the flood of his personality into her. From him, she'd learned the maze of streets surrounding the clinic and how to unlock the back door. Marie grabbed the badge clipped to Edgar's lanyard. Keep moving. She headed for the hallway.

The doctor came through the door just as she opened it. His eyes went wide when he saw her. He had a metal tray in his hand. The cure hypodermic and some swabs rested on top. Marie caught the tray with her knee and sent it flying. Remember, from the core, not the knee. She kicked the doctor solidly in the chest.

He fell back into the hallway, hit the far wall. That worked better than it does on Peter, Marie thought. But, she couldn't muse on how well the techniques worked. She had to get away before the staff could organize and trap her. The sound of that tray rattling against the tile would bring someone fast. Marie sprinted toward the back door.

She swiped Edgar's badge in a practiced move, also borrowed from him, and let the door lock again behind her. The bus was gone. Good, no driver to point out which route she took to the clinic workers, police, or army. What next? What had she learned about escape?

First task was to get as far away as possible. If they were going to come after her, she needed to make their search area as big as she could. This late at night the alley was empty. Likely the streets were as well. Marie wished momentarily she'd thought to go out the front. She might have stolen some useful mutant ability to help with her escape.

Too late now. She had to rely on Edgar's memory of the back alleys he'd use to sneak away for a smoke and to avoid the crowds of anti-cure mutants on his way home from work. Marie kept moving as fast and silently as she could. She listened as hard as she could for the sounds of pursuit.

None ever came. Perhaps the clinic had been open illegally, or they simply decided she wasn't important enough to chase. Whatever the reason, Marie was grateful when, after twenty minutes of stealth, she felt she could relax a bit and assess her situation.

She'd lost her purse and her coat, was broke and far from home. But, she felt -- amazing.

She'd used her powers with purpose, fought and won. She knew everything she'd experienced with Scott a the mansion was real. He did need her. The team needed her. Everything in life wasn't pointless and cruel. I matter. What I can do matters. For the first time, she believed that completely. I belong. I really am an X-man.

-----

Scott stared at the two Jeans on the bridge, perfect doubles, and his chest found a new reason to ache. He'd known this loss was coming. He'd come to terms with it as the jet settled over Alcatraz. But, staring at Jean dead was different from knowing she would die. This was no longer inevitability. It was fact. And it opened a chasm inside him.

He turned his attention from the spirit-Jean to the physical one. That body now held only the Eater of Souls. The last of his hesitation vanished. He could kill the monster without regret now. He wouldn't be killing Jean.

If he could get close enough to the thing, threaten it enough, maybe he could force it to fold itself into his plane of existence. Scott limped toward the bridge.

"Scott! No, wait!" Spirit-Jean called to him. "Don't get close. That's what it wants."

He turned toward her. "What it wants?"

Jean began picking her way over the broken pavement. She passed Magneto, who never noticed her spirit as he surveyed the rout of his army. Logan and the team had done a great job, though they still had to face the mastermind of this battle. Scott told himself he'd praise them, if he made it out of Alcatraz alive.

Pain slowed his progress. Jean reached the base of the rubble pile that had once been part of a tower and the bridge before he'd managed to cross half the yard. She looked so real, so alive. She saw him, heard him, and when she reached for him, her arms closed around him.

"God, I never thought we'd touch again," she whispered. Her voice carried a variety of emotions -- relief and peace and love. But, Scott didn't feel the same merging he'd always associated with Jean's embrace. He gritted his teeth because even the gentle hug sent knives into his lungs.

"Ribs," he managed. She released him and began probing with physician's fingers. He pushed her hands away. "No time, Jean. We have to deal with the Eater."

"You're hurt."

Dead, he almost said, because his injuries could be fatal. But, that wasn't true. He was far from dead. He carried healing in the form of the Eater's severed fang. Later, he told himself, when the monster is dead and the fight over, I can save myself with that. He'd pass out soon after injecting himself. For now, he had to bear the pain and fight. "Everyone here is doomed if the Eater doesn't die. You know that."

"I do." She looked up at her body. "So does Phoenix. We have a plan."

Overhead he heard a metallic wail, then the roar of an igniting flame. An instant later a burning truck hurled over them.

Scott dove for cover, taking Jean with him. They landed hard. The fireball crashed and the ground under them rolled with the impact. For a moment, Scott couldn't breathe. His body wouldn't take much more of that sort of punishment. He leaned closer to Jean. "What's the plan?"

-----

For Bobby the chaos of battle proved both exciting and terrifying. Terror added significance to combat. This wasn't a game. This was real life and death, putting yourself on the line for something important. Victory brought exhilaration, but he was disappointed when the last of the combatants ran up over the twisted, ripped bridge and disappeared into the mists.

I'm finally a real X-man. Rogue is going to be proud of me. That last flooded him with warmth despite the chill of his activated powers. No more feeling like a kid, or a failure. I won a war here.

Then the sky overhead lit gold. Magneto wasn't finished, though his army fled. The battle continued.

Bobby felt a tight grin pull his jaw. This wasn't going to be like Storm's Danger Room exercise where all they could do was run and hide. Logan was in charge and he'd told them to hold and win. Bobby intended to do exactly that.

He couldn't see the make of the vehicle Magneto had shot skyward. All Bobby saw from below was the dark undercarriage and Pyro's flames, but he followed the trajectory. He fired a blast of ice to intercept.

His ice stream killed the car's momentum. The mass of metal and ice hovered an instant, then fell. Bobby had to duck out of the way as the frozen auto shattered against the ground. He stared back at Magneto, who stood so stiff and outraged on his mound of rubble. Suck it up, asshole.

The ground rumbled. Bobby caught a flash of silver to his left. Peter was bounding over broken rock and twisted girders toward the bridge.

-----

Logan spun, tracking Peter. The young man charged Magneto, and Logan's mind cut straight to the Danger Room where he'd filled in for Scott what seemed a lifetime ago. That had been a game. But, had his bravado then taught the kids to be reckless? He stared, terrified that Magneto would tear Peter's metal body apart.

Certainly, that was the madman's intent. He swung his arm up and fisted his hand tight. Peter kept right on charging. Magneto had to scramble back. He put Pyro between himself and the steel giant bearing down on him. Pyro washed Peter with flame, obscuring Logan's view of the combat. Logan took the moment to access the rest of his team.

Bobby had frozen the first car, then ducked, but he looked eager to take on more. Storm studied the battleground, calm and prepared. This wasn't her first combat. She showed no hint of the indecision that so recently plagued her. He turned back toward the bridge and Peter.

McCoy landed heavily behind him. "Rasputin's body doesn't respond to magnetism the way normal ferrous metal does. It is more like flesh in that respect. I've always assumed this is--"

"We've got to stop that crackpot before he kills someone." Logan severed the lecture. "Can you get behind him? Cut him off?"

"I can try."

Pyro's fire had barely slowed Peter. After another moment, the big man's steel body emerged from the wall of fire. One blow crumbled Pyro. But, Magneto had used the distraction to vanish.

"Storm? Can you find him?" Logan called into the communication link.

She'd been back behind a tall chain link fence, but she rose now into the air. "Searching."

-----

Ororo put her power to work clearing the mists around the bridge, exposing Magneto as he darted down the span. The sight disappointed. This was the threat they'd all feared. He looked like a frighten old man, staggering a little as he shoved cars out of his path. So much for the master of the world.

Peter wasn't being subtle. He pursued over the cars in heavy leaps. Ororo had two thoughts at once. She'd have to remind the team about excessive property damage for one. More importantly, the moment looked dangerous to her. Any moment now, Lensherr would lose his panic, if he really was panicked at all. He could still use the vehicles as weapons, and Peter was too far out from the rest of the team to assist. This could be a trap.

She risked a lightning strike on the bridge in front of Magneto. He turned and looked at her. Somewhere in the fight or flight he'd lost his helmet and his white hair stood out starkly against this dark cape. "You're fools," he shouted at her. "Puppets! All of you!"

He might well be right, she thought. The creators of this cure and the government that supported them were no friends to mutants. Still, that didn't make Magneto's answer right.

Ororo caught sight of Hank swinging between the twisted bridge supports in a move to intercept. Good. Between the three of them -- Peter, Hank, and herself -- they should be able to manage a capture. She shifted her position more to the right to cover that retreat option. Magneto had collected himself after his outburst and began lifting himself into the air.

"I'll distract him," she whispered into the comm. to Hank.

But, then Magneto turned his attention to the far end of the bridge. Through the darkness, Ororo saw soldiers swarming forward from the mainland.

"They'll cure you all too!" Magneto shouted at her.

That might be true as well. Evidence at the battleground suggested that the cure weapons shot a barrage rather than single, aimed darts. The soldiers probably wouldn't care if they hit her too while trying to take down Magneto. Still, she couldn't retreat. They would have to capture Magneto before the troops arrived. "Then we'll have to give them no reason to shoot."

"As if I were the only threat." He sounded smug then, and his gaze pointedly shifted to a spot behind Ororo. "How do you think she'll respond to them?"

Jean. He meant Jean. Ororo remembered the fight in the Greys' old house, the building lifting off its foundation, the professor. This had been Magneto's retreat plan all along? If he failed in his efforts, he'd incite Jean to a destructive rampage that would sever human and mutant factions forever? "Damn you."

She swirled herself in winds and swooped back toward Alcatraz. She'd forgotten The Eater and the real risk they had to stop here. "Peter! Hank! Get back. Logan, company is coming and we have a situation with Jean and the monster. Regroup."

-----

"They're not running," Scott said to Jean. His junior team, frightened children in the past, fought bravely when called upon. Even if he couldn't lead them, he could enjoy the momentary lump of pride in his throat.

"They never were cowards to duck and hide their heads just because a few missiles fly," Jean told him, but her gaze never left the mirror of herself standing near the very end of the bridge. "Still, bravery won't save them if The Eater erupts in violence. Its rage is close to the breaking point. You've killed all its children."

"But, it's still alive." Now that Magneto wasn't tossing cars around, they could crawl up the broken debris pile and onto the bridge. Scott gritted his teeth against the fire in his chest. He put the Eater fang into his pocket. He couldn't heal himself yet. He still had work to do before he could let himself pass out.

"It isn't aware of us right now." Jean reached the bridge first. "I think it lost track of you when we took cover from Magneto's barrage."

Scott pulled himself up after her. "You can still read its thoughts? Even when you're--" How the hell was he supposed to express what she was correctly? Spirit? Ghost? Or just--

"Dead, you mean?" Jean wrapped an arm around him when he stumbled. The support reminded him of their almost-escape from Alkali Lake. That was the last time they really touched. He'd been so sure, in that moment, they were past the worst of things. He'd had so much hope.

"I suppose."

"It's Phoenix. She's still inside our body, so all of my spirit isn't free. The Eater won't let her go."

"When she dies, it dies," Scott guessed.

"I wish it were that simple." Jean paused and Scott wondered if she was getting this information from Phoenix. "An Eater hosted by a normal human is difficult enough to kill once mature. Along with their young, they develop healing spars that they use to restore their host bodies after injury. Still, if you can separate the host soul from its body long enough, the Eater will dissipate with that soul."

Scott remembered the tattooed woman Ororo killed. Her soul had shed form until it was only light. He nodded.

"But this Eater has Phoenix's power," Jean continued. "That power extends beyond the normal world into this plane as well. Neither of us has any idea what this Eater will be able to do even after all our souls have departed the body."

"That means I'll have to kill The Eater here, on this plane, even after --" He forced himself to say it. "--After your body is dead."

"Yes." Short, direct, and filled with more uncertainty than he had ever heard her voice.

"You don't think I can."

"Phoenix does."

"Then believe her." Scott had to believe. Uncertainty now would kill them all. Still, it bothered him that Jean didn't share her twin's confidence.

"But, whatever you do, don't get too close to it. If you do, it can turn off your power like it did at Alkali Lake."

The thought he had been kissing The Eater rather than either Jean or Phoenix on that lake shore disgusted him. He pushed that feeling aside. "How close is too close?"

Jean stared at him with troubled eyes. "I don't know."

-----

Logan heard Ororo's call to regroup. "Storm, what's going on?"

"Government troops." She sounded a little breathless. "You've got to get to Jean, now."

Jean. He felt his throat constrict. Ororo's meaning was clear. She wanted him to kill Jean before she hurts someone else. But, Jean hadn't participated in the battle. Whatever her reason for holding back -- The Eater of Soul's reason, he reminded himself -- Jean wasn't the enemy.

Logan understood what Scott had told them about The Eater of Souls, how it was controlling Jean and it wanted death and carnage and to spread its young. But, Scott had been taking care of that during the battle, hadn't he? The Eater should be defeated. It should be over.

Storm's winds ruffled his hair. She landed beside him softly, rested a hand on his shoulder. "Magneto is gone. We lost him. But, it will only be a minute before those troops swarm the bridge."

"Hank told the president we're the good guys," Logan replied. "They've no reason to shoot at us."

"And just how are they supposed to know that we're the mutants the president told them about? Hank, yes, probably. His face has been in the papers enough. But, I'm not willing to stand here with my hands up in the air and hope none of those soldiers are trigger happy."

She had a point. "Or have a grudge against mutants. I get it, Storm. Round everyone up and get them out of here. I'm getting Jean."

"Logan."

He knew what she meant. She thought there was no hope, no future. "I'm going to get her. We'll bring her home. Maybe we can figure out how to dislodge this Eater thing in the lab. We've got to try."

Her mouth tightened. "You know what needs to be done."

"According to who exactly?"

"Scott."

"Well, he doesn't know everything, does he?" Or maybe he did. Logan only knew, looking at Jean standing there, he had to try.

"Logan," Ororo began, but whatever warning she had for him, died unspoken. They heard the soldiers before they saw them swarm to a high point on the bridge. There was a single loud snap as a hundred weapons locked and loaded.

Logan cursed. This was going to be bad.

"Too late," Ororo whispered.

"Get the kids. Get them out of here. We don't want anyone shot."

"What about Scott?"

He turned his gaze back to Jean. Her posture screamed fury. That was the monster's anger. Logan would bet money on it. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. The Eater wasn't defeated yet. It still had Jean. "I don't think he's finished his job yet."

Logan moved from his semi-concealed position, still in a crouch, and scrambled for cover closer to the bridge. No weapons pivoted toward him. The army's attention remained locked on Jean. Whatever you do, sweetheart, don't give them reason to shoot, he coaxed, though he wasn't sure she could hear his thoughts. Let's just get out of here. Then we can fix things.

He crept closer still. But, he knew, as sure as he knew the monster still controlled Jean, that the soldiers wouldn't hold fire. He wouldn't reach her in time. He hated the feeling he couldn't move fast enough, shout loud enough. "Jean. Put your hands up. Surrender. They won't hurt you."

She wouldn't, of course. Jean didn't control her own body. A whirlwind of debris began to spiral around her. The report of all those rifles shook the stones.

She caught every dart. For just an instant Logan saw the tiny spears glittering in the false light, frozen.

-----

No! Phoenix's thought hit Jean like a hammer to the center of her forehead. At the same moment, she heard Scott curse beside her. He flinched as the soldiers fired and she caught his thoughts as well. Those darts would tear right through his body. I'll die before killing it, was his way of putting it.

To Jean's eyes, the telekinetic energy from The Eater exploded as a visible shockwave rippling through the air. It caught the projectiles. Stilled them. Shattered them.

Jean, Phoenix wailed. I can't control it. It's so angry. Its babies are dead. It can't make more. Dreams gone. Hope gone. Reasons gone!

Reasons? Reasons for what?

Reasons for restraint.

"Dear God."

"What?" Scott struggled against the wind The Eater was kicking up around them. He reached for a crumpled girder thrust upward out of the concrete and held on with his good arm. Jean thought he looked too pale, too weak. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "What's she doing?"

"Not Phoenix. The Eater. It's making its own Grand Dying." She sensed the monster's thoughts -- whether through Phoenix or her own mind, Jean couldn't be sure. The Eater reveled in the promise of unrestrained death. For the first time unfettered, it felt joy. Once, she'd thought Magneto was a monster. Now, she saw monster all the way down to the soul, and all other evil looked small, sad, and insignificantly human.

"How do we stop it?" Scott called. He clung to his anchor, muscles clenched, teeth gritted. His eyes were suns. Those eyes. Jean remembered telling him, many times, she wished she could look at his eyes. She'd thought she meant to see him with power controlled, normal. But, she'd really meant like this, full on, deadly. She'd wanted to see him as he really was rather than shielded and safe.

Now, however, looking at him her only thought was, If he dies, the Eater will destroy Phoenix. It wanted to, if only to keep the two of them apart forever. She felt that in the midst of its tirade. Scott was the only weapon who could stop it.

"It's up to her, Scott. She's got to fold it into this place for you." She's got to escape our body, was the part she didn't say.

A cyclone of hatred expanded around The Eater. Chunks of metal and concrete spun past Jean, never quite touching her. The wind barely ruffled her hair. But then, she was spirit not flesh.

"Another moment and I'm not going to be here." Scott's voice was a determined growl grinding out through his teeth. She saw how white his hand was locked around his metal support. He seemed to root his legs by will alone.

Phoenix! I need a calm space here!

I can't. I have to hold the monster.

You must!

Jean saw as well as felt the bubble encircle them. Scott sagged with relief against the post. When he coughed there was more blood, but he kept his feet under him. Outside their haven, the ground rumbled. The soldiers -- the entire troop -- turned to ash before Jean's eyes. Most of the bridge's towering supports followed. A gut-souring wail of metal preceded the roar of ocean. The entire span collapsed into the bay.

-----

Logan strained to hear the Blackbird's engines over the collapse of the bridge. He needed Ororo and the kids to be safely out of this before Hell grabbed them. The engine hum rose briefly, then deepened into a low growl as the jet, still cloaked, headed toward the mainland. Logan's jaw unclenched. He let his muscles loosen and move again. Good. Alone again. Responsible only for myself.

And for Jean, he reminded himself. Much as he would have liked to be truly alone, he still had responsibilities to Jean. And to the team. To the whole damn world.

Logan continued his slow crawl toward Jean. It was a true crawl now, on all fours and using his claws to anchor himself to the pavement. The whirlwind touched the sky and pulled at clouds. The island under him shook so deep the rumble barely registered on his ears. He drove his claws into a broken girder, then the remains of a block wall. Chips of stone danced against the metal. He felt the vibrations all the way into his wrists.

Another minute and Alcatraz was going to shake to pieces.

He dragged himself up over the edge of the rubble pile. To his left he noticed an eddy of calm in the storm. Logan almost diverted his path. He wanted one lungful of air that wasn't heavy with dust. But, he had to get to Jean before… before what?

Destruction, a small voice in his head finished. The voice didn't belong to him.

Logan's ears popped. Thunder boomed behind him. He squinted over his shoulder. Not thunder -- the laboratory building no longer existed. It wasn't collapsing, wasn't falling. It had been obliterated. The collapse of air into that vacuum generated that sudden clap. There had been people in there, people who thought they were safe. His heart accelerated.

Logan help me!The voice was stronger this time, Jean's and yet not.

"Who are you?"

Phoenix. With the word came the image of a face in his mind, Jean but younger. This was the face that had flashed in his mind the first moment attraction sparked between himself and Jean. This was the face he saw she they kissed in the woods above Alkali Lake. Phoenix -- not Jean.

The whole confusing triangle of himself, and Jean, and Scott fit together now. He'd fallen in love with Phoenix. It seemed foolish to have to admit. I thought you were Jean.

He felt her laughter flutter against his own heart. She could laugh and ask him to kill her in the same moment -- no wonder he loved her.

He wanted to close his eyes so he could study that face without external distraction. He didn't dare give in to that temptation. Fissures opened and closed in the ground around him so rapidly it looked like the island was gasping through a hundred mouths. A wrong move and he'd fall in to be chewed flat.

"What can I do, Phoenix? How can I help?"

Kill me.

No. The refusal came all the way from his bones. It was primal, elementary.

You have to kill me so we can destroy the monster.

Damned duty again. Logan was sick to death of it. When was it his turn to be selfish? Let the world die. I haven't had even an hour with you.

You don't mean that.

He didn't mean it. But, fuck it all, he wanted to mean it.

Logan could see her clearly now, through the storm of dust and debris. Her face was gray and dead, her hands talons. Her eyes were black and even more dead than her decaying skin. Red hair twisted about her like red snakes, or flame. A medusa. A monster. Where those thoughts came from, Logan wasn't sure. The images felt foreign, not his, not Phoenix's.

At least the body he had to destroy looked very little like the cherished image in his mind. That should make this easier. He stood, and the monster's gaze fell on him. He felt its hate, hot as tar. Logan fisted his hands. "Come on. See if you can kill me."

"Kill you?" Its voice rattled like dry sticks. "I will obliterate you."

Knives hurt, bullets hurt. There were no human words for what that blast of power did to him. People didn't live through that sort of agony to bring back descriptions. Logan tucked his chin and walked forward through the torment.

Alcatraz separated under his feet. The island simply fell apart. Logan had to leap to catch hold of Jean's ankle as her body lifted into the air. His weight never slowed her ascent. They soared up the center of The Eater's funnel cloud where the freight train roar of the wind beat against his eardrums.

Logan used her body like a ladder, climbing ankle to knee to wrist. Then when they were face to snarling face, he clamped an arm around her waist. The monster spit and bit. Her nails went straight through his leather sleeve into his arm.

Logan now!

He closed his eyes and Phoenix's face filled his mind. Kill this monster struggling in his arms and she would be gone to. Forever. He clutched the furious body closer. I can't.

You have to. Look.

He sensed the terrible force inside her. The monster stretched its power to the limit, up into the sky, down into the ground, searching for weakness to exploit. In the distance, he watched the sparkling city go dark. Then the creature found a long seam in the Earth to the city's East. That hot and jagged wound quivered at a single touch of power. Logan knew what that fault was, what it would do if The Eater opened it

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, the only way he could hug Phoenix's image to him. And he drove his claws through the monster's heart.

A moment only, they hung suspended in the sky. He felt the wind died. The body in his arms convulsed once. Then they were falling and falling, falling far into the black water with no island left to catch them. Maybe, Logan thought, this time I really will get to die.

-----

"Where the Hell are they?" Scott swore.

Alcatraz had atomized around them. In the darkness, Scott couldn't see if any part of the island remained beyond the upright needle on which he and Jean stood. Phoenix's protective shield saved them, but now Scott couldn't find Logan, or The Eater, in the maelstrom of waves and wind surrounding them.

"He's killed our body!" Jean pointed skyward. In the same moment the wind died and all Scott could hear was the wet sound of debris falling into the water.

He stared up. At this distance, his optic blasts would have little or no effect, however. "I need to pinpoint The Eater, Jean. And I can't see it."

A dark shape plummeted. He tracked the movement only to lose all sight of them in a quick white splash of foam out in the bay.

"I'll get them." Jean dove from their perch. She floated slowly until Scott lost sight of her too, against the dark water.

He staggered as close to the edge as he dared. Too close and he could fall. Already, his head throbbed and felt too light. He didn't like the sharp metallic tang that flooded his mouth when he coughed. His lungs crackled like packing plastic. At least the pain had left his shoulder and knee, but then so had all other sensations. Hurry, Jean, he thought, I don't have long to wait.

The stench of The Eater -- that death stink he'd hated from the first -- hit him. Then the thing itself was in his face. If his eyes had been closed, he would have been dead before expelling a breath. The monster fought his optic blasts with all the force it could find. Scott felt the blasts' pressure pound against his own body. But, his power couldn't hurt him.

Then, he found his focus. The creature's eyes swiveled toward him. He stared it eye to eye. For one horrible moment he looked all the way down into the thing's mind.

The Eater of Souls exploded. The shreds of its body disappeared into the sea.

Scott couldn't move for several minutes. The shock of seeing that alien, evil mind stunned him still. Thought returned first. I killed it. It's gone. It's over.

Then, he realized his how precariously he knelt at the edge of the pillar. He sank back until he sat on the stone. He was still alive. The others? Jean? Phoenix?

Here Scott. The voice that answered belonged to neither Jean nor Phoenix. He looked up to see her hovering in the air. She studied him in a stranger's way, friendly but distant. And he knew -- his Jean was already gone. So was Phoenix. They were one soul now, a soul that had never loved him, or Logan.

Is Logan all right?

He will be. They are coming for you both.

He didn't need to ask if she was leaving. He knew in a moment she would turn to the West and vanish the way the tattooed woman had. There was no time to whisper regret that he'd never known her as she should have been or that he never would. Apology had no purpose. Grief even less.

I'm going to miss you. He kept that thought to himself as he watched her unfold into light.

Her brightness lingered as a shadow on his eyes far longer than in reality.