I'm sorry. Can you ever forgive me?
There was no answer. That was to be expected. She was less than a ghost, more an echo. A fleeting shadow. Albeit one sitting in a chair next to a hospital bed. She reached out and laced her fingers between those of the hand lying limp on top of the sheets.
I didn't know. And that's an awful excuse but I honestly didn't. Neither of us did. It just sort of…happened, didn't it? I think deep down, we both knew. In some primal part of us, we knew there was something in the other that called out to us.
She sighed and tried to squeeze the hand. Her insubstantial fingers slid right through.
I'm sorry that you're like this because of me. I know I can never fully atone for this. But I can do this for you…
Her fingers pushed into their forehead then travelled down to the heart.
One mind, one soul; begone. You are two. Two minds, two bodies, two souls. End this unnatural bond. Be reliant on yourself, not the other. This is the Way of the Warrior.
She withdrew her hand and tears slid down her non-existent cheeks as her fingers brushed the face of her Makrrst-no-more.
One last thing…
She got up and moved over to the window, to the broad expanse of sky. Glanced over her shoulder and smiled.
Wake up, Kurt. The X-Men need their fuzzy elf.
And she was gone in a flash of steam, as if she had never existed at all.
One of the machines, silent for months now, began to blink and beep…
Phoenix looked cheerful.
"It's so sweet."
Kurt still lay on the bed but the numerous machines that had been keeping him supplied with oxygen and nutrients were gone. He shook his head at Hank and Logan's gentle questioning.
"The last thing I remember was teleporting in. Then pain. Right through my chest. It… It felt like Bastion again…"
He looked away.
"The next thing I know, I wake up here. But… There are… moments. I could have sworn… I could have sworn…"
Logan leant forward.
"What, Kurt?"
"I could have sworn I heard Tora tell me to wake up."
He caught the glance between Logan and Hank.
"Where is she? I thought she'd be here right now."
And then he saw the looks between them and closed his eyes.
"She's dead, isn't she?"
Hank glanced at Logan, as if hoping he would speak but the seated man remained stonily silent, leaving Hank to fill in the gaps.
"She… She killed herself before she could do any more damage."
Kurt looked over at Logan and saw a flash of something in his eyes that was gone as soon as it arrived. And in that moment, Kurt knew and Logan knew Kurt knew and there was such relief there that someone else knew his secret.
Eventually, Hank wandered off when a tiny girl with a white blindfold over her eyes knocked on the door and asked a question that lost Kurt after she mentioned "symmetry breaking" (eight seconds in) and he looked at Logan questioningly.
"What really happened?"
"She… She made me keep my promise."
Kurt reached out and put a hand over Logan's.
"She shouldn't have asked you to do that?"
"I promised. I swore that I'd guard her from the dark and I failed."
Kurt shook his head.
"You didn't. Please. Believe me."
Logan looked away.
"There's someone who's been desperate to meet you."
"Who?"
"Seeing as you've missed so much, you'll be surprised to know that Steve adopted."
"What?!"
"Lovely kid. Zillah Bat Etana."
Kurt frowned and Logan smiled.
"Clone. Lovely girl, spends hours with Laura discussing whether the neck or the chest is the better place to make a fatal strike."
Kurt couldn't help himself but grinned.
"And the girl?"
"That's Akira. She makes Maggie look like a spoon-bender."
"Meaning?"
"Electrokinesis, magnetokinesis, gravikinesis and able to control the nuclear forces, whatever they are. She stopped an earthquake on her manifestation."
Kurt raised an incredulous eyebrow.
"Really?"
"And she's not even that well-trained. She only really cares about how she can get her project particle collider to work. That's her discussing it with Hank now. Reed wants to take her in to the Foundation-"
"The Foundation?"
"Oh. You missed that. Reed's set up a school for the best and brightest. Jamie's there right now. Akira's all for it but we've agreed she needs to learn to control her powers here before we let her out to the Foundation. She's studying with them two days a week. Jamie has a new best friend."
Kurt laughed.
"Let me guess. He and Valeria pepper the girl with questions and she answers them all?"
"That's about it. And they argue about multiverse theory. And Schrodinger's Cat. I think Akira regards it as an insult to her ability. She sees in sub-atomic systems."
Kurt laughed and squeezed Logan's hand.
"What else have I missed?"
"Jean-Paul got married to Kyle."
Kurt pouted in mock disappointment.
"I missed all the fun stuff."
Logan smiled, properly for the first time in months.
"Kurt… Thanks."
Nightcrawler tilted his head.
"Why?"
"Just…for being you."
Silence. Phoenix glanced at her host and saw the sadness in the uncovered eye, the unspeakable sadness of one who lost everything.
The boy stood up, blood trickling down from his split lip and the cut over his eyebrow.
"Do it again!"
The girl looked confused but slammed her fist down on him again. He coughed and splattered blood across the ground.
"Again!"
The girl shrugged, obviously deciding the crazy mutie was really insane and thumped him again.
That was when something moving very, very fast thumped into her ankles and sent her toppling over.
Tommy stood over Curt and his face was so angry.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?! This is the kind of crap I pull! Not you! Not you!"
Curt looked up, the cuts already healing over, the depression in the skull hollowing out.
"Why do you care? No one cares?"
Curt was yanked upwards at superspeed and then slapped three times in two-thirds of a second.
"You stop that! When we didn't see you! Damn, Eli near killed Coat-of-Arms to find out where you'd gone! Don't you dare keep doing this!"
Curt looked shell-shocked, lost and tired.
"No one cares… No one ever cared."
"Don't say that! I know what not caring looks like and it's as sure as hell not what you have! If anything, people care too much and you have no idea what you had! You think you're so hard done by but your parents fought tooth and nail for you! Mine just said, sure, here you go, take him. Thanks, we'll take the eight thousand now and vanish! Your mother died to keep you safe! Mine just used to watch my dad beat me up."
Curt just shuddered.
"I… I think Dad killed Maman. I think he's been lying to me… I THINK MY DAD KILLED MY MOTHER!"
Curt stopped and looked around. The Young Avengers were staring at him with wide eyes. He closed his own.
"He… He won't answer my questions… He… He just avoids me when I ask… My dad… My dad killed Maman… He promised to me he… He promised he'd never hurt her…"
He shook his head.
"What do you do then? What do you do if you think that your dad broke every single promise he ever made?"
He slowed time down enough to make his escape before any of them could answer.
"That boy never could cope with anything harsh."
"He had the emotionally maturity of his twin, but because of his apparent age, people expected him to react like a young man, when in fact he was just a child still learning about his world. At this point, his relationship with Jubilee was really nothing more than exceptionally close friendship and some minor physical attraction that he did not fully understand."