True Believers: Part Twenty-Nine
Domino brushed wet hair back from her eyes with a trembling hand, watching Storm calm the rain she'd summoned to douse the fires Nathan had left in his wake. There was something odd about the fires. Melinda hadn't been able to control them with her pyrokinesis, and they'd seemed--stubborn, almost, reluctant to be extinguished by mere water. Maybe the strangeness came because they were fires produced by a man who wasn't any kind of pyrokinetic; it had to have been the Phoenix-force that created them, not Nathan. If there was still any sort of division between them, that was--
No. She cut off the thought brutally. No use speculating about that. It either was true, or it wasn't. Either way, Nathan was still in there somewhere--HAD to be in there somewhere.
The steam cleared, and Domino swallowed as she got a good look at their surroundings. At least he's leaving bodies, now. She wasn't sure why that was a comfort, but it was. Killing people was one thing, and killing Apocalypse's flunkies didn't particularly bother her, but just--obliterating them was another matter entirely.
But the corpses were still smoking.
#VANDAL!# Nathan's voice screamed in her mind, full of unspeakable rage and edged by a resonance she KNEW wasn't human. The base rocked down to its foundations, and the sound of explosions came from somewhere ahead of them.
Domino closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself to some sort of calm. She had no idea what they were going to do when they reached him. All she knew, all she could let herself focus on, was the fact that he hadn't turned on them; not, at least, until Logan and Storm had attacked him. Her jaw clenched spasmodically. Attacked him. As if they could have done anything in the first place. As if he were some rabid animal that had to be put down--
He hadn't turned on them. He'd lost it because of what Vandal had done, the atrocity that had been committed somewhere in the depths of this base. He hadn't turned on them and, until he did, she knew she could reach him. Link or no link, she KNEW the man. She WOULD reach him.
"Neena--"
She opened her eyes. "Shut the fuck up, Logan," she said tonelessly. Just because she'd decided not to kill him for what he'd done up in the warehouse didn't mean she was anywhere near ready to even CONSIDER forgiving him for it. Ignoring the pained look he gave her, she walked over to where Dunworthy was standing, bracing herself with one hand against the wall and staring off into empty space. "What are you seeing?" she asked the prescient network chief as emotionlessly as she could, remembering Dunworthy's sudden panicked 'vision' up in the warehouse.
"Changing--" Dunworthy said in an uneven, eerie voice. "Shifting, somehow--" She shook her head doggedly, fear and uncomprehending shock twisting her expression. "What the HELL is going on? I can't--nothing's clear--"
"The temporal distortion," Shavrin said raggedly, half-walking, half-staggering over to them. Domino shot her a quick, assessing look. Between what it must have taken to shield them, up above, from the backwash of Nathan's outburst and what she still had to be suffering from the mass murder of the workers, it was a surprise she was still on her feet. "It must be affecting your prescience. It matters not. Whatever you see, we must reach him soon--I may not be prescient, but I know this is not supposed to happen."
The Askani wasn't making much sense, Domino supposed, but, in a way, she understood Shavrin completely. She opened her mouth to take charge, or just to say something to fill up the silence--
#VANDAL!#
She couldn't help the shudder. "Sounds like a plan," she said to Shavrin, amazed at how calm and cold her voice came out. "Any suggestions?" she asked as the rest of the team started to crowd around, Storm and Logan hanging back. "Or do we just follow the sound of the screaming?"
"I have to be near him," Shavrin said raggedly. "To do anything, I must be near him." She shot a look at Logan and Storm. "But attack him again and I shall kill you both," she said hoarsely. Logan's jaw tightened, and Storm opened her mouth to protest. "No!" Shavrin snarled, the weariness shattering for a moment, revealing the rage beneath. "Had I not been trying to protect all of us, above, I would have intervened before now. You WILL NOT harm him, either of you. Make a move to do so and I will shatter your minds like glass."
"I do not like threats," Storm said, very quietly, her eyes slightly wide, but very hard. "Surely you know the sort of danger the Phoenix poses--"
"Better than you ever could, headblind cow," Shavrin snapped, the contempt in her voice absolutely withering. Logan scowled, but she snarled something at him in Askani and then spat on the ground at his feet before she levitated slightly off the ground and flew in the direction of the explosions.
Under better circumstances, Domino thought, half-wearily, half-numbly, she probably would have laughed.
***
In the base's secondary command center, Vandal watched the--thing on his screen rip its way through every defense they had. The fact that Dayspring - or whatever you wanted to call him at the moment; Vandal was perfectly familiar with the sight of the Phoenix-effect - was also screaming Vandal's name at the top of his telepathic 'lungs', so loudly that none of the surviving Riders possessed of even a modicum of psi-sensitivity were still on their feet, was, if anything, more disturbing. And that was putting it mildly, of course.
This had, the Horseman thought, almost dryly, been a very bad idea.
#MURDERERS! KILL YOU, KILL ALL OF YOU!# Dayspring's voice roared in his mind.
Well, at least that was a variation on the previous theme. Much to the obvious distress of his surviving Riders, Vandal began to laugh, loudly and heartily. It really was far too funny for words. All their planning, the whole elaborate trap, and this was the 'reward'. To say the plan had backfired would be the understatement of the millennium. Ignoring the shocked or uncomprehending looks his Riders gave him, he whirled, striding towards the crumpled form of his prisoner, under guard in the corner.
"Come along, boy," he said, hauling the Askani spy to his feet. "Let's go out and greet Dayspring, shall we?"
The boy peered up at him. Even with one of his eyes swollen nearly shut from the beating the Riders had given him, Vandal could see the hate there. "Shouldn't--be in such a rush," the boy choked out, somehow managing to edge the words with contempt. "Eager to d-die, are you?"
Vandal struck him across the face, measuring the blow so that it was just enough to stun. He could have snapped the boy's neck without effort, but a corpse wasn't much good as a hostage, was it? The boy slumped in his grip, and Vandal looked around at his surviving Riders.
"Get the rest of the shipment safely teleported to the island," he instructed them coldly. Perhaps it was foolish to be worrying about such things at the moment but, if the fates were kind and he somehow managed to survive, he had no intention of having a lesser failure added to the tally of his already-grave miscalculations today. "I doubt I'll follow."
Apocalypse would have him killed if he returned in defeat; he knew that without even needing to take a moment to consider his options. His only way to survive was to figure out some way to snatch at least a measure of victory from the jaws of defeat. Unfortunately, the only way to do that was to face the creature coming for him--and see what kind of damage he could do.
He could not match its strength. But perhaps, in the end, cleverness could save him--and if not him, at least those closest to him, from their Lord's wrath. He thought of Golden, with a pang, and then pushed all the extraneous thoughts from his mind.
There was, after all, very little time.
***
Dead. Dead. More dead. The spark of life inside them was gone--crushed out, Nathan Dayspring thought with a savage sort of joy. It had felt so good--so right. Justice, finally, to those who skulked and hurried about in the shadows on the business of the monstrosity they called their lord.
But they weren't all dead. He could still sense some of them--and the worst of them, the one who had done this, who had made the innocent voices scream out in fear and then fall silent, was still alive somewhere, in the maze. That malignant mind was still clear as day to his perceptions, and it held him here, chaining him to this place. He couldn't leave to go looking for the root of all this--evil until he'd destroyed the darkness here.
You didn't leave an enemy behind you. Even when the enemy was an insect.
The fire crackled in his mind with fierce approval. Nathan could almost hear it speaking to him, whispering softly but compellingly about all he could do. How he could finish here, cross the world in the blink of an eye, and end it all, today, forever. Great darknesses, petty shadows--he could burn them all out of the world from now until the end of time.
Light. Nothing but light, freedom from all of this, everything that had haunted him his whole life. And all he had to do was want it enough.
All he had to do was stretch out his hand, and take it--
***
It wasn't hard to find him in the end.
Rather easy, as a matter of fact, Wisdom would reflect later. They'd followed the trail of damage and bodies, eventually turning a corner seemingly indistinguishable from all the rest in the labyrinth that was the innards of the base--and there Cable was, floating in mid-air in the center of some high-ceilinged room, the Phoenix-effect beating its wings lazily, as if keeping him in place. As if he'd been waiting for them; but he took no notice of their entrance, and none of them were about to call attention to themselves without some sort of plan.
Pete's jaw clenched. "Anyone have any bright ideas?" he snarled softly at the others, all of whom had stopped, just like he had, at the sight of Cable floating there. "Frankly, I'd like to know why the hell he's suddenly stopped." Not that he'd been planning to get between him and Vandal, that was for bloody sure.
"He looks--blank," Kitty whispered from beside him. He spared her a glance, seeing that she'd fallen instinctively into a defensive position, watching Cable intently. "Almost frozen."
Pete shot a wary look back at Logan and Storm, and was relieved to see they were both studying Shavrin, just as warily, and not making any aggressive moves. "Anytime now, love," he muttered finally, turning to the Askani. She'd said she could do something, if they got her close enough, and someone sodding well had to do something here--
#Be quiet,# Shavrin's voice whispered urgently in his mind. She'd directed it at all of them, to judge by the way expressions changed on the faces all around him. #He's listening.#
Listening? Listening to what, sod it all--to them? Or to something else? He opened his mouth to ask Shavrin what she was talking about, but hesitated, the words dying on his lips.
Footsteps. Pete could hear them now, too, and as he looked across the room to the other entrance, half-blocked from view by the Phoenix-effect, he saw someone enter. Two someones, one towering and muscled, the other smaller--
And very familiar. Something clenched in Pete's chest, and he heard a soft cry from Melinda.
"Jamie!" Jonas murmured, relief and fear mingled in his voice. They came closer, and Pete growled as he saw Ripper's condition, and recognized the face of the man holding him in front of him like a human shield.
Vandal. This proved they'd been set up, too, Pete thought with a sudden bleak anger. If they'd known enough to separate him from the rest of the workers before they killed them, they had to have known all of it.
The Phoenix hesitated, and then blazed brighter, almost too bright to look at directly as it swelled into even greater immensity, nearly filling the room. It leaned forward, the huge head and beak of the bird-form coming within mere feet of Vandal and his hostage.
And the Phoenix screamed in rage, a piercing, utterly inhuman noise that shattered the air. The Horseman took a staggering step backwards, as if the scream had struck him with a physical force, but regained his balance almost immediately, never letting go of Jamie. The Phoenix beat its wings wildly, as if in frustration, and threw its head skyward, emitting another fearful shriek. Nathan was nothing but a shadow lost inside it, barely visible.
"He doesn't want to hurt Jamie," Pete almost breathed, and hope surged up inside him with sudden strength. So Nate was obliterating the bloody 'bad guys'. They could handle that, so long as there was enough left of him somewhere in there to remember who his friends were.
#Too much power,# Shavrin's voice whispered. #He doesn't know how to be subtle, in this form. He can't do anything to the Horseman without risking the boy, unless he powers down.#
"What's the matter, Dayspring?" Vandal shouted hoarsely. "I'm standing right here, right in front of you. What's holding you back? Blinded by your own fireworks, maybe?"
You stupid bloody git, Pete thought, stunned. Domino took a step forward and then stopped, one hand reaching towards Nathan almost involuntarily.
"Go ahead," Vandal snarled to the great shining bird-form hovering in front of him. "Surely you can't value his life THAT much. You certainly didn't hesitate to wipe my Riders off the face of the earth now, did you?"
The Phoenix screamed again, talons outstretched but snapping futilely on empty air, as if fighting the desire to reach out and tear Vandal to shreds. #Murderer!# the voice that wasn't quite Nathan's roared.
"No more or less than you, Askani'son!"
"He's stalling," Carmen hissed.
Stalling--spending his life for something, Pete thought. But what? They couldn't go on and find out, not until they'd resolved this; their priorities had certainly gotten bloody well rearranged today.
Shavrin suddenly laughed aloud, a scornful, clear sound that rang out across the room. The Phoenix whipped around, and Vandal stared in their direction, as if only now noticing them.
"A small annoyance, brother," she said in that same clear, ringing voice, and then added something in Askani. The Phoenix turned back to Vandal, and--hissed, somehow. It was the only word Pete could think of to describe that sound.
Vandal's eyes widened slightly, and Pete would have bet his life savings, that moment, that he recognized exactly what Shavrin was. "I'll kill him!" he snarled, the threat edged by desperation this time as he took a firmer grip on Jamie.
"No," Shavrin said. "You will not." She gestured, silver light flashed around her, and Vandal and Jamie were suddenly flung apart, Jamie a little more gently than the Horseman.
This time, the shriek from the Phoenix was one of triumph. Vandal shouted something - what, Pete would never be sure - and raised a hand in a futile shielding gesture as the Phoenix's talons seized him and drew him up into the air. Smoke rose from his body as he struggled, screaming in agony, and Pete and the others watched as white-hot light grew around him. The screaming went on, and on, until Pete realized they weren't hearing it with their ears anymore, but with their minds, somehow. And all the while, the Phoenix hovered there, its great head lowered to Vandal's body as if it was watching, avidly, drinking in every scream of pain.
Then it threw its head back up to the sky, emitted a cry that was somehow scornful, and ripped the Horseman casually in two, flinging the pieces of the charred, still twitching body to either side of the room.
***
Domino flinched at the dull thudding noises the pieces of Vandal's body made as they hit the ground. The head of the Phoenix darted back and forth, and then leaned forward towards the boy - Jamie, she reminded herself, their 'insider' here. - who was struggling to pull himself up off the ground.
One great wing drifted forward, brushing him gently, and Domino stared in disbelief as bruises vanished and Jamie stood up straight, the pain in his eyes gone and replaced by wonder. The Phoenix seemed to stare back at him, and Domino watched as its color seemed to shift, red-gold to a brighter gold and then back again, flickering incessantly. Its wings fluttered, as if it was straining to keep itself aloft.
She was suddenly aware she was being watched, and turned to meet Shavrin's intent look. "Talk to him," the Askani said softly.
Domino swallowed, nodding and stepped forward. "Nathan," she called softly, her voice seeming too loud in the silence. "Nate, can you hear me?"
The Phoenix somehow managed to crane its 'neck' around and look back over its own shoulder at her. Inside the fiery shape, Nathan didn't move, and Domino found herself struggling suddenly with an irrational but nearly overwhelming irritation. "I'm not talking to you, you stupid bird," she snapped, and heard at least three indrawn breaths from behind her.
Great blank fiery eyes studied her for a long moment. Then the Phoenix turned, lazily but fluidly, and hovered there before her. She could see Nathan, suspended there where the Phoenix's heart would have been if it were a real bird and not a cosmic entity masquerading as one. Nathan's eyes were closed, but his face was twisted in a mask of pain, and there were tears flowing freely down his face.
"Let him go," Domino said, her voice coming out ragged, even as soft as it still was.
#No.# The voice sounded almost like Jean, but it was too cold, far too cold. Domino nearly jumped out of her skin; she hadn't expected an answer. #Mine.#
"He doesn't belong to you! You're hurting him--"
#Not me,# the voice continued, and the Phoenix looked over at Shavrin, almost suspiciously. #Not her. But them. Never again.#
"Nathan," Domino whispered, hands clenching into fists at her sides and tears blurring her own vision. "Tell--tell her." Somehow, the pronoun was right, and not just because of the sound of the Phoenix's voice. "You're not in control here, and I know you wouldn't want that. Tell her to let you go--please--"
The Phoenix leaned forward and hissed at her. Domino managed, by an act of sheer will, not to flinch. #Protection,# it insisted. #Not control. Never. Mine. Part of me!#
"I don't believe you," Domino said harshly. The Phoenix made a shrill noise, wings beating. "If it's true, let us hear him say that."
"I can't do anything," Shavrin whispered from behind her. "It's shielded his mind, completely."
Domino set her jaw. Then it was down to her, she supposed bleakly. "You don't have a very good track record, you know," she said as levelly as she could to the cosmic entity doing its damnedest to stare her down. "Dark Phoenix. Madelyne. How do you expect us to trust you?"
#Trust? The trust of insects? Matters NOT!#
"Insects who--who care about him," Domino continued, a tiny part of her gibbering wordlessly at her own temerity. She was arguing with the Phoenix. She was arguing WITH THE PHOENIX. Did she have a death-wish? "He's not--he's part of us, too."
"None of us question your--concern for him," Shavrin said, very softly and deferentially. "But look into his mind, Phoenix. You must see the damage there. He needs to rest, to heal. He is not a strong enough vessel to hold you, not now, no matter how much you may wish to--join with him."
Domino's blood turned to ice at Shavrin's choice of words. "Please," she begged without shame as those burning eyes looked back at her, as if the Phoenix had suddenly scented her fear. "Just--let him go." She trailed off, not knowing what else to say. "Please," she whispered, meeting the Phoenix's gaze as levelly as she could.
The Phoenix stared down at her for a moment, and then threw its head skyward again, its cry almost mournful, this time. The flickering stopped. Domino heard herself gasp as that bright gold seemed to bleed upwards into the Phoenix's wings, the color of sunlight driving out the fire as the wings folded gently around Nathan. He drifted like a leaf to the ground, and the Phoenix-effect--collapsed into his body, flaring once more, in painful brilliance, as it disappeared. He fell forward onto his hands and knees, and stayed there. Domino could see his chest heaving from where she stood.
She was crossing the floor to him before she even made the decision to move. "Nate," she said hoarsely, kneeling down beside him. He flinched away from her touch, but she took his face between her hands gently, forcing him to look up at her. "Answer me," she barely breathed, staring down into his mismatched eyes. They were dazed, full of sick fear and confusion, and he didn't seem to be able to focus on her face. "Nathan--"
He murmured something in Askani, his voice anguished, and then collapsed against her, shivering. Her arms went around him, seemingly of their own accord. "It's okay," she whispered. "Nate, it's all right." Domino jumped as Shavrin knelt down beside him, and gave the Askani a pleading look as the other woman laid a hand on Nathan's head for a moment, closing her eyes. "Shavrin?" she asked after a seemingly eternal silence, her voice wavering.
"I can't tell if the damage has worsened," Shavrin murmured, opening her eyes. "Not yet. There's still too much residual energy in his mind. At the very least, he's in shock. We need to get him out of here as soon as possible."
"Melinda," Carmen said quietly. "Take half the team, get to the command center and get that information." The blond pyrokinetic nodded, and glanced at Kitty, who gave a slightly strained smile and nodded back, following Melinda and the others out of the room. Carmen took a hesitant step towards the three of them, and then stopped, giving Logan and Storm a hard look as they started to move. "You two can just keep your distance," she said, biting off the end of each word savagely.
"Enough," Shavrin said softly. "His shields are gone. If you care to risk setting him off again, by all means, continue arguing amongst yourselves."
"We do not intend to argue," Storm said, very softly, "or to do anything else except help him. I swear it."
Domino bit her lip, hard enough to taste blood, to keep back the retort she so desperately wanted to make to that. Calm, she had to stay calm. "We're going to get you out of here," she whispered to Nathan, stroking his sweat-soaked silver hair with a hand that shook despite her best efforts to keep it steady.
"I couldn't stop," he murmured brokenly. "I could have--all I w-wanted was to kill them--couldn't think of anything else--just killing them--"
"It's all right," Domino said, trying to keep her voice soothing. "It's over."
"No," he said disjointedly, still shaking. "Still there--I can feel it--"
Something drew Domino's gaze to Logan, and she flinched at the look in his eyes, her arms tightening around Nathan almost protectively. There was concern in those cold blue eyes, but there was something harder, too, a determination she knew from long experience and had learned, warily, to respect.
Damn him. Didn't he think she was afraid, too? She didn't think a human being could look at what Nate had been a minute ago and NOT be scared to death. But he was still Nathan, and she wasn't going to let Logan or Storm - or ANYONE, damn it! - condemn him for what he MIGHT do.
To hell with that. If he wanted to push this, he'd have to go through her first. She met his gaze unwaveringly.
Logan didn't look away.
***
Jubilee opened her mouth, again, and yet again, couldn't make anything resembling words come out. But Professor Xavier seemed to see what a loss for words she was at, and filled up the silence by smiling at her warmly. "Hello, Jubilation," he said fondly. "You look well."
"Yeah," she said finally, her voice faint. "You too. Actually you look kinda great." He did, he really did. Most of the worry-lines were gone, that tense look she'd gotten used to seeing in his eyes had vanished, and he looked younger. Or maybe just happy. She wasn't sure which. "But--um, aren't you kinda supposed to be in jail, or something?"
The Professor blinked, and then laughed. "Blunt as always, Jubilee," he chuckled. "I believe I've missed you a great deal." He turned to Gina and Tally. "Hello, Gina, Tally. I know both of you, actually, although we've never been introduced. I--watch, a great deal." He looked up with a wry smile at Miriya, who was standing beside him, one hand on his shoulder. "There's very little else to do here."
"Told you, I did, that I would fetch you whatever you wished," the Askani said, her weary, caustic tone at odds with the strange little smile playing on her lips. "Several years of reading to catch up, have you not?"
"Too true," the Professor said with an easy smile. "I dislike asking you to make these jaunts for reasons so inconsequential as my boredom." Jubilee stared as he lifted the Askani's hand off his shoulder and brought it to his lips.
Okay, she thought dazedly. Not only was the Prof here, wherever the hell here was, when he was supposedly in prison because of Onslaught, but he was looking to be pretty damned affectionate with mystery-lady there. This was just plain weird, there was no other way to put it.
Miriya sniffed, but there was something in her expression as she looked down at him that only strengthened Jubilee's suspicions. The fact that she didn't pull her hand away--that said something, too. "Not inconsequential," she said quietly. "A prison, this is not."
"Truthfully, my dear, that thought had never crossed my mind," the Professor said, very softly.
All right, that's one of those Significant Looks, Jubilee decided, watching the two of them stare at each other for a moment. "Um--could we get some sort of, well, explanation here?" she asked falteringly. "This is just--sort of throwing me, Professor."
"Unsurprising, all things considered." The Professor backed his hoverchair up a little and gestured for them to follow. "Come inside. I'm sure you must want to sit down."
"Oh, that's one way of putting it--" Jubilee said weakly.
The house was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside. A WHOLE lot bigger. Jubilee peeked into a few of the rooms leading off the long, long hallways, and saw Gina and Tally doing the same. She didn't really know why she'd expected this to be a normal sort of house, given the events of the last day or so, but this was just crazy.
"Between, we are, as I said," Miriya murmured, her hand resting on the Professor's shoulder again, almost possessively. "Easily manipulated is space, when between times."
"Between times?" Tally said, almost in a squeak, and gave a nervous giggle.
The Professor gave her a kindly look. "You're thinking it would have been better to take your chances back at your station, child," he said, almost briskly, as he and Miriya led them into a room that was so much like the den at the mansion that Jubilee stopped in her tracks and Gina ran into her with a yelp. "I can assure you, neither of us mean any of you any harm." He gestured around. "Make yourselves comfortable," he invited.
"Well, I trust YOU," Jubilee muttered despite herself, casting a suspicious look at Miriya as she sat down on the couch.
Miriya laughed softly, and shook her head. "Refreshments, children? Anything you wish, I can produce--the least I can do after a journey so rough."
If she's offering to get us milk and cookies, I'm just going to start screaming and get it over with.
#Do be polite, Jubilee,# the Professor's voice said, gentle but reproving, inside her mind, and she stiffened as she turned to meet his gaze. #Miriya is perfectly capable of hearing you, you realize.#
"Yeah, well, maybe I don't care. All of this mysterious crap is getting on my nerves," Jubilee grumbled, glowering.
"Understandable," the Professor said, more gravely. "But you could have chosen not to come. And I am profoundly sorry, my dear," he said, looking at Tally, "that you were caught up in this."
"It's all right," Tally said, sounding a little more steady. "It's--um, interesting." Her eyes darted around, taking everything in. "Really interesting."
"A good little soldier you are, child," Miriya said, almost amusedly, as she perched in an armchair beside where the Professor had stopped his hoverchair. She reached out, and the Professor took her hand, their fingers entwining. "Gathering intelligence, analysing a potential hostile. Afraid I am, though, that remember this house or this time you will not."
Gina sat up even straighter, her eyes glowing slightly, and a shadow of alarm crossed the Professor's face. "It's necessary, child," he said in that 'I-know-best' tone that Jubilee remembered all too well. "You must do what you must do, in this situation, and my presence here cannot be revealed to anyone back in our own time. Not for months, even years to come."
"Why?" Gina asked simply, the light in her eyes dying. "I know how much they worry about you, back there. Why are you hiding here?"
The Professor stiffened slightly, and Miriya squeezed his hand. "Hiding," he said finally, almost resignedly. "I suppose that's as good a term as any." He looked up at Miriya, staring into her eyes for a long moment, until Jubilee started to feel like she was intruding. "Suffice to say," the Professor continued quietly, speaking to Gina although he didn't look away from Miriya for a moment, "I was given a look at the future as it could be if I had stayed. My absence will prevent certain events from happening--events without which that future cannot come to pass."
"How?" Tally asked brightly, and the Professor gave her a sharper, more intent look. "I mean, are you talking about critical events and nexus points? I don't know how you can be so sure that you can achieve the right variation, though--"
"You ARE an intriguing child," he murmured, and then continued in a more normal, somehow wistful voice. "You are all so young--I don't know as if you can understand this."
"Try us," Gina invited, without the slightest hint of confrontation in her voice. Jubilee was reluctantly impressed. Gina hadn't seemed to bat an eyelash at any of this--well, she hadn't known the Professor, but still, she looked calmer than Jubilee felt.
"I realize all three of you have people to whom you are particularly close. Jubilee, you and Logan share a special bond. Gina has something very similar with Cable and Bishop. Tally, and her foster parents--" He hesitated. "But can you understand what it's like to have one person in your life who--defines it, for lack of a better word? Whose every action seems to be a reaction to one of yours, or vice versa--whose fate yours is so entwined with that the two of you seem--doomed to be locked together in strife until death?" For a second, that tired, tense look was back in his eyes, and he squeezed Miriya's hand almost absently.
"You're talking about Magneto, aren't you?" Gina said quietly, her eyes glowing again, just a little. The Professor gave her a quick look, and she smiled faintly. "I can see him in your mind."
"I'd know if you were scanning me," the Professor said thoughtfully, "and you're not."
Miriya smiled. "Very talented, the child is," she said, as if she and the Professor were alone in the room and she was confiding some secret to him. "A great role she has to play in all of this, but fit she is, I believe."
Jubilee tried very hard to ignore the cryptic conversation and focus on what the Professor had just told them. Magneto. It was wild, but things were starting to make sense, Jubilee thought bemusedly. Of course things would happen between the Professor and Magneto if the Prof was back there in their own time, out of prison. Things always did, didn't they? It was like some unbending law of the universe.
And if Miriya - it had to have been Miriya who'd rescued him and brought him here, unless there was someone else hiding somewhere around this crazy house - had shown him that those things would be bad, she could see the Professor being willing to take himself out of the picture. It made sense. It did. It didn't make her feel any easier about it, but it made a twisted sort of sense--
"A dreadful thing, balance can be," Miriya said quietly. "Sometimes, no hope is there unless one breaks it." She leaned forward, and passed a hand across the top of the coffeetable. It fogged up, as if she'd breathed on it, and when it cleared, there were pictures in the glass.
Jubilee leaned forward in fascination, barely aware of Gina and Tally doing the same thing on either side of her, and watched.
It was a jumble of images at first; Kitty and Nightcrawler and Colossus coming back to the X-Men--leaving Excalibur? The X-Men fighting all kinds of enemies, on Earth--fighting in space, and watching in horror as a planet was destroyed in front of them. Marrow, changed to the point where she was almost unrecognizable. Cable running down a street that exploded behind him; Cable standing, with a spear in his hand, in front of a figure in silver armor that HAD to be Stryfe--
Then the images slowed, and Jubilee heard a gasp from Gina as they saw Joseph's face lingering in the glass. It was a Joseph so aged that she barely recognized him, but there were X-Men there too, and they looked their right ages, so it couldn't be in the future--could it? Then the image shifted, and Joseph was facing a different figure in armor--in RED armor, Jubilee saw, her jaw dropping.
"That's--that's not--"
Light swallowed Joseph, and she knew without really seeing anything that he was dead, or something very close to it. The scene shifted, and she saw the Professor facing the red-armored figure, who was standing there without his helmet--
And he had Magneto's face.
Magneto. Magneto AND Joseph? But before she could ask, the images flowed onward, growing faster and faster, blurring into one another--
Magneto went on to rule Genosha. The Professor got strange and suspicious, and Jubilee watched as the X-Men split up, going their separate ways--
--watched Logan die, only it wasn't Logan, Logan was running around in weird-ass armor FIGHTING the X-Men, and Caliban was fighting X-Force and kidnapping Cable--
--and all of the people she cared about, and some she didn't, were fighting Apocalypse, but it wasn't right, they were losing--
--and Cyclops--
--and SCOTT was--
The images in the glass vanished, and Miriya slumped back into the chair, looking exhausted. "More there is, of course," she murmured wearily. "Show you all that affected that timeline, I cannot. But when to unravel a series of events, one wishes, removing a nexus point is the simplest way." She smiled limply at the Professor. "Easiest to remove, a living nexus point is. The greatest effect for the least effort, especially when willing the nexus point is."
"But how do you know this new timeline's any better?" Tally pondered aloud.
"Have faith, I do," Miriya whispered, and closed her eyes--not quite in time to stop them all from seeing the tears that welled up in her real eye.
***
They were 'inside' the station's computer, on that same crystalline virtual-landscape Melinda had shown to her before they'd hit the base. Kitty couldn't really make herself appreciate it, this time. First of all, she was worried to death about Cable. They'd whisked him away to the infirmary as soon as the plane had touched down in the hangar, and she hadn't seen Domino or Shavrin since.
Secondly, despite the fact that they'd uploaded the data she and Melinda had retrieved from the computers in the base, they hadn't managed to crack the code yet. Mostly because Rebecca was being awfully uncooperative as far as cyber-ghosts went.
"Rebecca, what is the problem?" Melinda snapped, making a sweeping gesture. Symbols drawn in green light danced outwards from her fingers like some kind of magical spell, but impacted uselessly against the solid, dark crystal that was the visual representation of the download. "You can run these decryption programs faster than I can."
Kitty cast a perplexed look at Rebecca's slightly wavering form, and then imitated Melinda, trying another one of the programs. This time, the symbols were electric blue, still incomprehensible to Kitty. The surface of the dark crystal rippled as they hit, but then merely swallowed them without the slightest sign that they'd had any effect. "Rebecca, is there something wrong?" she asked worriedly as the image wavered and crackled. "Melinda, shouldn't she be able to maintain her interface in here?"
"Unless it's still storm damage," Melinda growled, and closed her eyes. "No, damn it," she said after a moment. "As far as I can tell, the systems are fine. What the HELL is the problem?" She opened her eyes and glared at Rebecca, who returned her gaze almost calmly.
"Compensating," the artificial intelligence said with a faint smile. "You shouldn't be so impatient, Melinda."
"Nathan's lying down there in the infirmary, Rebecca, and all the laborers the Dark Riders had in that base are dead," Melinda snapped. "We paid far too much for the information, and I for one want to know what it says!"
Rebecca's image broke up into hazy lines, and then reformed. "You shouldn't be so impatient, Melinda," she said again.
Kitty frowned, and stepped out of the link for a moment. But as soon as she stirred, back in her own body where it was seated securely in a chair in the command center, someone was lifting the headset off her, and she looked up at Pete, startled.
"Any news?" she asked immediately. He looked grim, and she fought down another surge of worry. "Pete?"
"Nothing yet," he muttered. "Any luck?"
"Nothing," Kitty said, wishing passionately that there had been SOME kind of news, at least. Not knowing was too hard. "We've been trying, but no progress at all so far. And Rebecca's acting strangely."
Pete's reaction wasn't quite what she'd expected. He turned, exchanging an odd look with Nicholas, who frowned slightly and sat down at one of the consoles.
"What's going on?" she asked him in a softer voice, noting the visible tension of the other network operatives in the room. "Are they worried about Nathan?"
"Yes, but that isn't all of it," Pete muttered, keeping his voice low and looking around in a way that wasn't quite furtive--more wary, Kitty thought. "If they knew enough to set us up at the base," he said, almost in a whisper, "there was only one place that information could have come from."
"Oh," Kitty said, just as quietly. "Of course." She forced herself to relax again in her chair, and not to look around at any of the other people in the command center. She hadn't had much chance to think it through, since things had started to go badly out there tonight, but it made sense. Left a pretty awful taste in her mouth, but it made sense.
"Of course," Pete said with an attempt at a smile that wasn't quite convincing. "Kit--stay out of the computer, all right?" he said a little more urgently, staring down into her eyes intently.
"I'm not leaving Melinda in there alone," Kitty said immediately, trying to figure out what was behind his insistence. Did he think that whoever had leaked the information had sabotaged the station's systems?
"I wasn't suggesting that, Pryde. I was going to have Nicholas cut her link--"
"We're FINE, Pete. Melinda's been doing this for years, you should know that better than I do. And I'm just in a partial link. I can come out anytime I like." She pursed her lips. "We really need that information, Pete," she reminded him. "We need it before another temporal wave like the last one hits. It'd take us three times as long to crack the code, working from out here." She very deliberately didn't tell him about the lack of progress so far. That wouldn't last. She and Melinda would figure it out; they just needed a little more time.
"I bloody well hate arguing with you when you make sense," he muttered distractedly.
She reached up and squeezed his hand. "Do us both a favor? Go check on Cable. I'm letting myself get distracted, worrying, and I'm sure you'd feel better knowing, too."
He raised an eyebrow. "Why do I get the sense you're trying to distract ME?" he grumbled.
She gave him a bright smile. "Because I am, you silly git."
***
"So," Ororo said quietly, studying Scott's image on the screen as it crackled with interference from the slowly calming storm. "That is what happened, more or less. I am sorry to be the bearer of such grim news, Scott, but I felt it best you know immediately."
Even with the interference, she could tell Scott was ashen. It took a long moment for him to gather his composure enough to respond. "What--what's his condition?" Scott asked, his voice rough with some emotion Ororo couldn't guess at.
"Stable, according to the medic here and to Shavrin," Ororo said, trying to make it sound reassuring, but given the next statement she had to make, the attempt fell rather flat. "Shavrin is still examining him. It was difficult for her to tell if he caused himself any further psionic injury, given the residual Phoenix-energy."
Scott's jaw tensed. "He needs to be back here," he said, his voice a mixture of helplessness and anger. "Jean's on her way back, and this other Askani's here. I trust her more than I do Shavrin."
Storm smiled humorlessly. "Can we truly trust any of them?" she asked, remembering Shavrin's all-too-serious threat back in the base. Would the Askani truly protect their Chosen One if the worst happened, and the history of the Phoenix repeated itself? "But I will not debate that having him back at the mansion seems to be the best course of action," Storm continued.
"Then you'll try and convince them to come back?" Scott said with painful urgency.
"I do not know how--open they will be to suggestions from me," she said, faltering at a fresh stab of guilt at not having told Scott everything. Admitting to the choices she and Logan had made back in the base was something better done in person, not over a com-frequency prone to break up at any moment. "But I will try and convince them to return as soon as possible."
Scott nodded, almost jerkily. "He didn't--" he started, so softly that his voice was almost inaudible. "He didn't turn on you and the others, did he?"
"He did not turn on anyone who did not offer him extreme provocation," Storm said instinctively, seeing the fear in his eyes and knowing its shape, but willing Scott to take her answer at face value. Praying that the instability of the channel masked anything in her expression that would give her away. "We will resolve this," she said firmly, trying to sound confident. "What happened before will not happen again."
She couldn't tell if Scott had seen through her or not. "Ororo--" he started hesitantly, but then continued, what little emotion there was in his voice draining away as he spoke. "Contact me when you know more?"
"Of course, my friend." Ororo sat there, unmoving, as Scott cut the channel and vanished from the screen.
"Well, you bent the truth a little there, 'Ro," Logan's voice growled from the doorway.
"Would you have me tell him the whole truth?" Ororo asked quietly. "In such a manner?" She looked around at Logan, who was shaking his head slowly.
"All these damned secrets," he muttered. "It ain't going to work for much longer, Storm. Something's going to break open, and we're all going to wish we'd never kept any of them at all."
"Perhaps," Ororo said, her eyes narrowing as she wondered exactly what he was talking about. Something more than her conversation with Scott, she was sure. "But sometimes a truth is so harsh it must be--softened, for its hearer to bear it."
"Maybe. But lies always turn out to be cages, 'Ro," Logan said bluntly. "Even little white ones."
***
The headache was back. He shouldn't be surprised. He even welcomed it, in a way. At least it was normal--or had become normal, over the last couple of months. There was something to be said for routine, Nathan thought numbly as he laid there on the biobed and watched Josephine study the screens above his head, a frown on her face. Anything to distract himself from the telepathic 'noise' all around him. Shavrin was shielding him a little, but it didn't really help.
The infirmary felt so cold; he couldn't seem to stop shaking. He supposed he could ask someone for a blanket, but he was so tired, and so afraid that if he opened his mouth Dom would take it as an excuse to start screaming at him. Not that he didn't deserve it. She was standing over him, on the other side of the bed, her expression calm but a storm raging behind her eyes. One word could let it out, he knew that.
Coward, he thought emptily, and closed his eyes.
#No, brother,# Shavrin sent in the battle language, very firmly. #Not a coward. Merely very--bruised.#
He'd forgotten she was inside his mind, looking for--whatever she was looking for. More than was there, he was sure. He felt so--empty, as if the Phoenix had gone and left nothing behind but the pain and the fear. Nothing more than he deserved, losing control like that, though. What had he been thinking? Not much of anything, his conscience pointed out bleakly, and he took a deep, shaky breath. He hadn't thought at all, once he'd felt all those workers die; their pain, their fear, had hit him like a juggernaut, and the only way he'd seen to silence it had been to reach out to the Phoenix and take the only way he could to avenge them--
Dom reached out and took his hand, and he flinched, hearing a muttered curse from Josephine as the monitors responded to the jump in his heart rate. "Easy, Nate," Domino said quietly, her eyes softening a little as he looked up at her. She squeezed his hand gently. "It's all right."
"No," he whispered hoarsely, trying to ignore Shavrin's presence in his mind. She was being very gentle, trying to avoid causing him pain, but part of him was losing it at the sensation of her crawling around in his mind, poking into every dark corner. If he gave in to that part of him, he'd start screaming, and he didn't know if he'd be able to stop. "It's not."
She almost smiled. "Okay," she said, still softly, "so it's not. What do you want to do about it?"
He was thinking about the question, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to say to that, when Shavrin, floating in the meditative position at the foot of the bed, abruptly righted herself, dropping to her feet with an absolutely sulphurous curse. Nathan blinked and managed to lift his head just enough to meet her eyes.
She looked miserable, but she was shielding so tightly she felt like a blank spot in the psychic noise. Not letting anything leak, Nathan thought, watching her. "I should never have left," she said roughly, sounding almost as if she were on the verge of tears. "I should have made sure--I should have KNOWN she would come back to do mischief!"
"She?" Nathan rasped, trying to think of who Shavrin meant. He felt like his thoughts were moving through mud, they were so slow, so labored.
"Hana!"
"Hana?" Dom murmured, raising an eyebrow. But her eyes went flinty, her grip on his hand tightening abruptly, and he slumped back against the bed, biting back a moan as her anger seemed to stab into his mind, right through Shavrin's shields. The shields thickened immediately, but too late, and he laid there, struggling to stay conscious as the pain in his head swelled to a massive crescendo before it ebbed back to a level that was almost bearable.
#Breathe,# Shavrin's voice murmured to him, soft but urgent.
Eventually, he could open his eyes again, and found himself staring up at their worried faces. Dom reached out, laying a hand on his forehead, and he shivered weakly. Cold; her hand was cold. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
It seemed almost unbearable that she should be apologizing to him. "No," he muttered, trying to make it sound at least half-convincing. "Not--your fault." Even moving his eyes to look at Shavrin hurt. "Hana?" he asked, the question coming out a little stronger.
Shavrin's mouth twisted. "You have been--remembering things, yes?" Nathan froze, fighting back panic, but she continued. "Flashing back to memories, in--loops?"
"That's what happened at the mansion," Domino said before he could answer.
"I realize that. Wisdom did brief me on what happened. But--since then, yes?" Shavrin murmured, staring down at him. "Repeatedly?"
He wondered why she was asking the question when she so clearly knew the answer. Nathan swallowed, and looked back at Dom. "Yes," he whispered, and nearly flinched again at the stunned look in her eyes. He forced himself to look at Shavrin again, and to go on before Dom could say anything. He didn't want to know what she was going to say. "B-But it's not just memories," he rasped. "The--world goes strange, too--"
Shavrin's eyes widened slightly. "That--" She glanced at Domino, and then went on. "That could be the temporal distortion caused by that last wave. I'll--have to scan you to tell." Her expression settled back into that despairing look. "But these memory loops--I can see what caused them. WHO caused them, rather."
Nathan thought about it. Remembered how desperate he'd suddenly been to get out of the mansion, how all those memories, all those emotions had been pressing in on him so that he could barely think. He'd done--so well, all these years, at keeping them locked away. But it hadn't even occurred to him to wonder why--why then, why now--
Domino was asking Shavrin something. He forced himself to listen. "Why would Hana have done this to him?"
Shavrin's voice as she answered was haunted. "To make him vulnerable. But I doubt she did it only to him, Domino."
"Of course," Domino murmured, her grip on his hand tightening. "Him so desperate to get out, Jean and company so desperate to keep him there--some of us knew there had to be something going on, but we thought it was him or Jean doing it."
"I would imagine all of you were affected, if only peripherally," Shavrin said hoarsely. "This sort of empathic manipulation--"
"This Hana is an empath?" Josephine asked, sounding surprised, from somewhere else in the room. He hadn't noticed her move away, Nathan thought.
"Some--of us are." Shavrin sounded uneasy. "Those who are are not supposed to use it in such ways." Nathan blinked up at her as she leaned over him slightly, studying him intently. "She couldn't have known the full effect she'd have," she murmured. "She couldn't have wanted to do THIS to you. These loops could very well have driven you mad, if they went on for long enough." She gave a very faint smile. "Regardless of what else the Phoenix did, at least it seems to have broken that cycle."
"Small blessings?" Domino said with a forced laugh.
"Perhaps," Shavrin said softly. "You need to rest, brother." Her eyes narrowed, and he felt the shields around him strengthen a little further and stabilize, somehow. "That should suffice for now. I'll check them in an hour to ensure they're still stable." She squeezed his shoulder and then turned, moving out of his field of view.
"Rest is a very good idea," Josephine said briskly, moving up to stand beside the bed. "The stimulant you took should be wearing off shortly. At that point you will have no choice in the matter." She gave Domino a significant look.
"I'll be just a couple of minutes," Domino said, in the tone of voice he heard rarely enough to know he was in for it, now.
Josephine nodded and withdrew, and Nathan forced himself to look up at Domino. He could sense little ripples of some fierce emotion coming from her, but she was controlling herself so tightly, it was as if she was the telepath, and shielding herself. Or maybe he just didn't want to know what she was thinking. Maybe that was it. Cowardice, whatever excuses Shavrin made for him.
"I knew you were keeping something from me," Domino murmured, very quietly. So that Josephine wouldn't hear her, he supposed. "I saw a little of the--other hallucinations, before you closed off the link. But I didn't know about these--memory loops. I'd see you freeze, go blank--that was what was happening, then? You were having flashbacks?"
"I--" His vision kept blurring. He tried to raise his free hand to rub his eyes, but it fell back to his side, limply, and a choked noise of frustration and near-despair escaped him before he could stop it. "Oath, Dom--"
"I wish you'd told me," she said, very quietly, her eyes still burning. "I thought you trusted me enough to--lean on me, when you needed."
Something crumbled inside him. "I wanted to," he started, almost feverishly.
"Bullshit, Nathan." Her tone never altered. "If you'd really wanted to tell me, you would have. You've had plenty of opportunities since we left the mansion." A flash of rage crossed her face but was gone almost immediately, and when she continued, her voice was even softer. "I did everything but beg, you stubborn son of a bitch."
"I did," he whispered. "I did want to tell you, I just c-couldn't--"
"Why not? I know there are things that you don't trust anyone with, Nate. I hate it, but I know it. But I honestly didn't think 'I'm having traumatic flashbacks and I think I'm losing my mind' was really one of them."
Somewhere, he found the strength to push himself up onto one elbow and meet her eyes. "I was--" He hesitated, a faint, cracked laugh slipping free. "I don't know what I was, Dom. I didn't know what was happening, or how to stop it--and I was so a-afraid--" The word stuck in his throat, but her expression changed, ever so slightly, as soon as he made the admission.
"Afraid of what?" she asked, a different edge in her soft voice, now. "You've come to me with life and death problems before, Nathan. If you were afraid to tell me about this, it wasn't from the fear of getting me involved."
"No," he admitted, letting his voice drop to a whisper. "Not of getting you involved."
"What, then?" Her voice rose slightly, in frustration, and she cast a wary look in the direction Josephine had gone before she went on. "Was it pride? You didn't want to admit you couldn't control what was going on in your own mind, so you didn't want anyone to know?"
He thought about it. "Maybe," he said uncertainly. "I don't--" There was a lump suddenly in his throat, and he swallowed past it desperately. "I felt--I was trying to convince myself that it didn't matter, that I could handle it--that I HAD to handle it--"
"On your own?" Domino's eyes were suddenly very hard. She let go of his hand, and Nathan swayed a little, as if some anchor had just been removed. "How do you think I feel hearing that, Nathan? I thought--I thought we were past that. I guess I was wrong."
He stared into her eyes, fighting back self-loathing at the sight of the pain there. "I--I'm--"
"If you say you're sorry, old man, I may just forget how pitiful you look at the moment and beat the crap out of you," she whispered, something close to honest warning in her eyes.
A tiny spark of heat flared somewhere deep in the cold emptiness inside him. "I wasn't going to apologize," he said hoarsely.
"Oh?" she asked in a hard voice, arching an eyebrow. "What were you going to say, then?"
He swallowed, and laid back against the bed before he fell, but didn't break eye contact with her. "That I--that I didn't think about any of this."
"Well, obviously."
"I didn't know what to do," he said raggedly. "When I--when I found out about the third Askani, I didn't know whether I could trust Shavrin, pledge or no pledge. I still don't. I don't know what's going on, what any of them really want from me, and flonq it, Dom, I didn't want you involved in any of it--"
"Protecting me?" she asked harshly.
The spark grew hotter. "No!" he snapped weakly, and plunged onwards before she could tell him what she thought of that. "It's--it's not protecting you, Dom, damn it, it's keeping you out of it, there's a hell of a flonqing difference!"
"Maybe," she said. "But you're changing the subject, Nate. Not wanting me involved with the Askani is one thing. Keeping me in the dark when you need help so badly is another."
He pushed himself back up again, trying to ignore the way his vision kept blurring, desperately focusing on her face. "I was--I was ashamed," he said brokenly. "I didn't want you to know about--"
"About what?" Domino asked sharply.
"All of this. All of it--" He slumped back against the bed, realizing finally why his vision was blurring as hot tears trickled down the side of his face. "What I've d-done, what I've let happen--" It was bad enough that she'd seen the battle at Anikia, and the destruction of the Protectorate. She kept enough secrets of her own--didn't she understand that there were some parts of your past that the people who cared about you shouldn't see, not if you wanted them to keep caring? If she saw everything, knew everything, she'd want nothing to do with him, and she'd be right, flonq it--
He tried to turn away from her, but a strong hand reached out and gently turned his face back. Their eyes met, and a distant part of him wondered, rather distractedly, what the flonq he was doing. But the words spilled out, almost of their own accord. "I kept--it wasn't seeing it, Dom, I could have dealt with seeing it all over again, but I felt it, too--I was THERE, again, every time--"
She stroked the side of his face gently. "You still could have told me." Her voice was hoarse.
"I couldn't," he whispered miserably. "I just couldn't, Dom. All I could manage to do was put one foot in front of the other and wait for the next one to hit--" Keep moving, keep fighting--
A soft noise came from her, almost a laugh but without the slightest hint of humor about it. "You really haven't--dealt with any of this, have you?" she asked. "And I thought I was bad--" She laid a hand on his forehead for a moment, her expression tightening. "This isn't a good time to be arguing about all of this, I suppose," she sighed.
"I'm not trying to make excuses--" he said unevenly.
"You'd better not be," she said with a faint flicker of a smile. "But maybe I am," she went on, a trace of irony in her voice. "Couldn't you manage to look just a little bit better than warmed-over dogshit so I could justify yelling at you?"
"I could try?" He didn't know where the attempt at a joke had come from, and the part of him curled up in the shadows swore bitterly at him for allowing himself that luxury.
"Hah," she said, that smile returning for an instant and then vanishing as her expression turned somber. "You were scared, I can deal with that," she said very quietly. "I get the sense that all of this--coming back here--would be making you crazy even if you weren't sick. And I know damned well you weren't in control of yourself back at the base--" She hesitated, and shook her head. "We've got too much else to deal with right now, but we're going to talk about this later, okay?"
"Okay," he whispered.
"And you have to promise me something," she said, taking his hand with her free hand. Her gaze was serious, so intent that he caught himself starting to look away. "This is over for you, Nate. Right here. I don't care if you want to debate what Apocalypse might be up to or help us plan out strategy for whatever we've got to do next, although I hope to God you know better than to think your judgement's sound at the moment--" She paused, giving him a probing look, and he managed a weak smile. "But if you so much as wish aloud that you could finish this, I swear by all that's holy that I'm going to lock you in the nearest psi-shielded room, and then I'm never going to speak to you again."
He blinked. "Dom--"
"No," she said, that edge back in her voice. "Maybe I'm being a little too facetious, Nate, but I'm serious. I will not stick around to watch you kill yourself, are we clear?"
"Perfectly." He stared back at her for a moment, until she leaned over and kissed him lightly.
"Get some rest," she said hoarsely, drawing back, her eyes a study. "I won't be far."
He thought of so many things he wanted to say to her in that moment, but he was so flonqing tired, all of a sudden, as if he'd used up all his energy in the conversation. Could relief make you feel this drained? he wondered hazily, closing his eyes. His thoughts slid away, into the haze, and he let them.
***
Logan had figured that if he lurked around the infirmary for long enough, Domino would eventually emerge. Shavrin had, a couple of minutes ago, and given him such a warning look that he'd further revised his impressions of the Askani. She'd seemed like such a hesitant slip of a thing, back at the mansion, but the kitten had teeth. He hadn't had any trouble believing her threat, back at the base.
Domino's expression, as she saw him, wasn't any more welcoming than Shavrin's, and a great deal more chilly. He planted himself in the middle of the hall, and saw her pause, obviously deciding whether or not to turn around and go the other way. Then, with a shrug, she walked forward, stopping a few steps away from him.
"What do you want?" she asked flatly. Those violet eyes were stony, the walls behind them higher than he'd ever seen them.
Logan decided not to beat around the bush. "How is he?"
"Why would you care?"
He tried very hard not to grind his teeth. "It was an honest question, Neena," he growled.
She smiled humorlessly. "And if I told you he was sleeping, would you creep in there to finish him off?"
Logan swore. "Damn it, Neena--"
"Save it, Logan," Domino said icily. "I should point out that Josephine's still in there--remember the nice little medic-lady with the mutant ability to generate neural shockwaves? Suffice to say that she doesn't want people bothering her patients. Especially people who tried to kill her current patient a couple of hours ago."
"You think Storm and I were trying to kill him?" Logan snarled.
"Then what?" Domino asked, donning a mock-confused look for a moment. "Maybe I've been out of the loop, but did the definition of 'take him down' change while I was in Alaska?"
She'd heard that. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised. "Neena, listen to me," he said determinedly, moving to block her as she tried to step around him. "You weren't around to see what happened with the Dark Phoenix. Storm and I didn't want to hurt him, we just wanted to stop him before it went too far."
"Seems to me that he stopped himself," Domino said coldly. "And the only ones he killed were Dark Riders, Logan--no, don't say it," she snapped warningly as he opened his mouth to protest. "You think I want him running around manifesting the Phoenix? It scared the shit out of me, Logan, and I want the fucking thing away from him, or out of him, whatever the hell we have to do, but I wasn't stupid enough to think that attacking him was going to do any good." She smiled bitterly. "Maybe Shavrin should check you and Storm out. She found out Hana was messing with Nate's head, but he's certainly not the only one acting irrationally--"
She started to step around him on the other side. Swearing under his breath, he reached out and grabbed her arm. He couldn't leave things like this, not with her--
He was on the floor blinking up at her before he even quite registered the blow. "I suppose I deserved that," he muttered, rubbing at his jaw.
"That and a lot more, you bastard," she snarled. "So just stay the hell away from me, and we'll both be happy." She whirled and stalked away.
He decided, after a moment, that it was probably better not to follow.
to be continued...
[FOOTER]