asongwithin | Duplicity Inbox

[ There's a path in his mind that's always going to lead him back here. It's late when he wanders down it this time. ]

Jeannie?

[ Her sleep isn't exactly restful, and Logan's intrusion into a fitful, sweaty, lonely night is a welcome one. He's greeted with immediate warmth - more than enough to drown out, say, anxiety or insecurity. ]

I'm here.

[ Always, is the undercurrent, and she remembers the Phoenix's last words to Scott, once upon a time: I'll always be with you. ]

[ There aren't many secrets here. Jean's psychic runoff of disturbed sleep makes him think of that doomed space station, the stink of overheated metal, sweat and her body shutting down. He's been thinking about that time a lot lately.

He leans into the contact, coming close to nudge his nose up under her ear. ]

Can't sleep?

[ The memory is, of course, incredibly fresh for her, lending all the more raw vibrancy to it as her own perspective mingles with his: her mind strained to the breaking point before it began drifting as aimlessly as the station, stripping away kevlar and leather and desperately wishing she could shuck off her skin along with it, the feel of his hand stroking her hair.

She'd felt so miserable and helpless and frustrated; not so different than now, really, just a matter of scale. There's no imminent death, that's already done with.

Just like then, she relaxes against him; not desperately vulnerable in the same way, but clearly craving that comfort. ]

Tossing and turning a lot. Meditation isn't helping.

[ They might as well be there again, the shared memory carving out its own space. Only not so hot this time, or so bright, and in some distant place he can feel his own bed underneath him.

Logan sits down on one of the low consoles they'd worked so hard and so futilely to repair. Picks up a broken piece of metal and tosses it aside. ]

Nobody ever taught you to turn your mind off, Jeannie? [ Hey, it's late. A good time for bad jokes. ]

Turns out I'm better at turning off other peoples'.

[ A decidedly darker joke as she crouches in front of him, nightshirt rippling into her tank top as her hair twists itself into a ponytail. She can feel the sun at her back, and firmly resists being pulled into that part of the memory. ]

[ It might be dark, but he snorts a laugh at it anyway. They're pretty good at whistling through the graveyard by now.

He looks at her thoughtfully. ]

Always liked you in black. Suits you better'n that little green dress. [ His gaze lifts to their surroundings. ] Strange to be back here. Had a lot of dreams like this after you left. Right here, tryin' to figure out what I could have done different. Dreamin' of you in my lap. Missin' you so fierce it hurt.

In my defence, I designed that thing when I was thirteen.

[ There had been adjustments, of course, when it finally became an actual uniform, but the basic aesthetic? All preteen enthusiasm.

Her voice softens, as she reaches out to touch his hand. ]

You did the best you could. I think - no, I knew, I knew coming up here that the end was coming.

[ "I'm going away now, Charles." ]

I don't regret spending those last hours with you.

[ She remembers asking for Scott; of course she wanted him there. Him, Ororo, Warren, Hank - god, so many people she never got a chance to say goodbye to.

But she's pretty sure Logan is the one, above all, that she needed here. ]

[ He turns his hand as she touches it, spreading his fingers to thread into hers. It's not a dream but not real either, though it feels pretty close.

There's a tiny, bitter part of him that wants to point out that she all but guaranteed how it would end by making sure he was there -- but she hadn't had to ask, either. He'd done it anyway. She understands him, after all. What he's useful for. He can't hold that against her. ]

You've missed a lot, Jeannie.

[ He wants to cut to the chase. They can't spend the whole time lingering in the past. ]

If you want a download -- [ He reaches up to touch his temple with his free hand. ] Just say the word. Might save some time.

[ She didn't have the strength left to do it herself - or, say, a handy ancient weapon lying around. (Phoenix's memories are at a certain remove from hers, but she's largely made her peace with the fact that it's all what she would have done, even if she didn't. For better or worse.)

Her fingers - the idea of her fingers, anyway - tighten around his, both giving and needing reassurance. ]

You could.

[ Is it what she wants? To come face to face with all she couldn't prevent, because she couldn't stay?

It's what she needs, if she's going to meet him and Scott - and Kurt, and Josh - where they are.

So she nods, and braces herself. ]

[ Her hand in his isn't precisely realistic, just the edge of a psychic suggestion keeping him from fully believing it, but it's an anchor all the same. Somewhere else, there's Duplicity and a whole city between them, but here, there's nothing else.

He doesn't need to reach out for her but he does it anyway, cupping her cheek in his palm. ]

Just the highlight reel. [ He's not sure if any more than that would be a good idea -- if she could take it. Or if he could take remembering it.

Taking down that mental wall is easy. Like a river flowing into a new channel, he lets his memories flow towards her. As he does so, the space around them fades out, going black, leaving them in an endless dark -- and the force of the memories as they slam into being around them, flickering like someone going through a pack of cards, thoughts shuffling fast down the years.

He tries to stick to the highlights, like he said. Just memories, just the bits she needs to know. Not so much of his private life. As little as possible as he can give her of his pain and regret, though as the memories continue their shuffle, it starts to bleed through.

First, the fallout of her death. The struggle to pull themselves back together, to find meaning again. Grief and hurt. Rachel changing her name. Laura turning up again.

And Phoenix, again. Her death, again. Over and over. His mind tries to flinch away from those memories, but the room around them turns to blowing snow and ice all the same.

The shuffle continues. Life continues. Scott and Emma keeping them going. Then, waking up one day in another reality. Wanda's little dream. Her own grief and pain that warped the world. That wish that sent them all spinning -- and waking up again as an endangered species.

M-Day.

The loss. He can't help showing her that. Mutants had found themselves in a nightmare. And it had only gotten worse as their enemies closed in. The kids in mourning. Falling out of the sky. The deaths, the explosion that kicked off a civil war.

Then, Cable, the race for Hope. Falling apart one desperate attempt at a time. Splintered, then coming together again in the ruins Asteroid M. Utopia. San Francisco. A crude attempt at healing as Scott tried to knit them back together through sheer willpower. How it had worked for a while -- but not long enough. Years passing by in a flicker of thought. His own adventures had taken him all over the world, dipping back into those dark days of violence, waking up and going to sleep in different timezones, always running and fighting.

Selene had torn all their wounds from M-Day open again and Cable had arrived in the wake of that chaos, along with Hope. Logan tries to hold back as much of X-Force as he can, but there's nothing to hide their involvement here. Chasing down Bastion in the future and the past. His own pain at Kurt's death bleeds through. He gives her, after a microsecond's pause, Nathan's death too.

By now he's aware it's too much, far too much, but he can't stop now. There's his own brief stint in Hell -- he avoids most of that -- and more bullshit, the same kind they've always had, Sentinels and world-warping. His fights with Scott getting worse, getting more personal, until they can't stand the sight of each other. Daken.

As they get closer to his present, he lingers a little more, especially in the grounds of the school he named after her. How hard he'd tried to live in her legacy and make something instead of destroying it for once. Not that they'd been allowed to enjoy it for very long, not when Phoenix had decided to get involved again.

This, he tries to give her in detail, since it's Scott's reality. How they'd fought over Hope, the Avengers turning up to demand her handed over to them. How Hope had taken things into her own hands and ended up in an even worse fight. How the Phoenix had been split and taken over Emma, Namor, Pete, Illyana -- and Scott.

Xavier's death. Hope and Wanda, restoring the world, restoring mutantkind.

Scott in prison. Trying to trick him into killing him and Logan's own refusal and disgust.

Then, Scott's escape. The arrival of the kids, Xavier's children, so damn young. Kurt's return -- in time to find Logan with his healing factor gone and his own mortality finally calling him to a place he never thought he'd get to.

He gives her the briefest glimpse of his own death. None of the pain of burning. Only the awareness that he was dying, for real, for good. The darkness. No white hot room for him.

Waking up again isn't something he expected to do. He skips the details, showing her brief glimpses as he'd tried to return to a reality that had moved on without him. Watching from the edges. Learning that Scott, too, had died and come back. Finding him and trying to rebuild their cause, only to discover the X-Men -- and Jean, once again restored as her adult self -- were missing. But not for long.

Reunion. Time slows down around them. Logan lets Jean see more of these memories as Krakoa flowers into being where the space station used to be, the green darkness cool and soothing. He shows her the moon. Their bedrooms, the family dinners. He leaves her on a few of the last memories he has of home: saying goodbye to her and Scott as he slips out early one morning, heading off to check in with Hank and Forge.

As the memories fade out and the dream/psychic connection fades back in, it feels to Logan a little like being on the other side of a bad injury or sickness. He feels hollowed out. Krakoa's heavy flowers bloom above their heads, purple and white. He lets go of Jean to reach up and pluck one, letting her sit and collect herself and whatever she's dealing with in that barrage of life and death and rebirth. ]

Edited (sorry sorry typos) 2022-01-30 19:48 (UTC)

[ The first images - the aftermath, everything she left behind - are almost a relief. It hurt them, she knew it would, but it didn't break them. They stayed together, kept moving, kept trying. He'll be able to feel how deeply it strikes her, hearing Rachel Grey - and some echoes of her own memories, of sewing a costume she knew she'd never wear, crafting a crystal imprinted with her psyche. It mingles into the grim, gentle sympathy of what he experiences instead with Daken.

Even Phoenix's return, wounded and wild, doesn't truly unsettle her. Logan's claws in her guts hurts less than knowing she's the reason he had to do it, and she squeezes his hand in an apology she knows couldn't possibly be enough, but maybe the words will mean something:

We burn away what doesn't work.

She'd like to linger there, in painful understanding and ragged remorse, but they can't; it all keeps moving, and for a while it remains almost soothing. Scott and Emma doing exactly what she wanted them to do.

Then there's Wanda, and the Decimation.

She lets him show her the consequences, but refuses to let them be too vivid, too detailed, because she knows - she knows if she sees any of those childrens' faces, puts any names to those headstones, she will lose control. It's a fact, a statistic, and it needs to remain that way for now.

She shouldn't recognise Hope, but she does. It doesn't surprise her that it's Nathan who takes her as his own, and the same pride she felt in Rachel swells here too.

Even in glimpses it breaks her heart to see Scott run so ragged, Logan's life consumed in violence and loneliness, both of them compromising so much of themselves with X-Force. At first, Nathan's arrival is a beacon, blemished by Kurt's death but she knew about that, knows he comes back -

and then -

and then -

Everything goes white hot. Everything inside of her screams. If Logan's mind wasn't there too - an anchor, a reminder, trusting her and loving her - she might have lost herself to the grief, the fury, the fire.

Instead, after a few long moments, she follows him into another sort of aftermath. Grieves instead for her team, her family, torn asunder along with the two men she loves. The school is a balm for that, at least, an oasis of grateful, wistful joy. Of course, Phoenix is her legacy just as much, and she did know what was coming.

She didn't know the details; who fired the gun, who else was hit, how exactly Charles died. Her own grief is accented with a deeper, stranger edge of remorse.

Not D'Bari again, at least, but it still shouldn't have happened.

Scott's suicidal gambit, that's no surprise, but once again her heart breaks for both of them. (She can't judge him, though; she's not that much of a hypocrite.) The kids - her, so young and full of hope, thrust into a grim and desolate future - what was Hank thinking? But she can't dwell on that for long because then...

It's not as ferocious a reaction, because Logan is right here with her, but it hits hard all the same. There are echoes, here, of the first time they thought he'd died - how achingly hollow she felt, and the desperate, resounding relief when they realised what had really happened. There's a flare of defiance, too: any darkness coming to claim him will have to contend with her.

By now, she feels like a furnace, overflowing with a dozen different emotions, singed and raw. His and Scott's reunion soothes some of it, and then there's Krakoa.

Sanctuary found, family rebuilt, beauty flourishing all around them as children laugh and play, as their people are brought back from the brink. The moon where she died, and instead of an ending it feels like a beginning.

She started crying a long time ago, but now, at least, they're tears of joy. There are things she still doesn't understand about Krakoa - things that don't quite align with Charles' dream as she knows it, things that terrify or appall her - but this...

Logan pulls away and she focuses on her breathing, here and alone in her bed, an Askani rhythm that always steadies her. It's enough that she can look up at him with a faint smile as she blinks the tears away. ]

You weren't kidding.

[ Her voice is hoarse because her mind is, because she feels battered and exhausted.

The first thing she has to ask, knowing they can bring their people back: ]

Nathan - ?

[ She holds up like he thought she would, because she's strong -- she's always been so damn strong, his Jeannie. He feels rather than sees those edges of flame and knows she'll be okay, definitely sees the real-not-real tears. The combination quiets the panicked animal that's been stalking around inside of him.

He reaches out to brush a strand of hair back behind her ear, tucking the flower there alongside it. Leaning in, he kisses the tears on her cheek, offering her the memories at the same time: the old man returning, the bits and pieces Domino's told him about that time with the reformed team. Then a younger Cable arriving, chasing down the younger versions of his parents, gone from a hardened warrior to a smart mouthed kid who grins at him and calls him "Uncle Logan" across the crowds of the Crucible.

Logan doesn't hide the way that had made him felt, proud and glad and guilty at the same time, given a gift he's not sure he's earned yet. Confused over the idea of being some kind of role model figure to a guy he's fought and cursed and bled alongside for years.

He sits back on the Krakoan-made couch, a curving seat of soft vines, like being cupped in the palm of the living island. ]

Same as always. [ Meaning Nate and, in general, the weird stuff they've all become far too used to. ]

[ She leans into his hand, closes her eyes, drinks in those images. It's all strange - from the easy, guiltless intimacy to a teenage Nathan running around in the present - but for now she just lets herself enjoy it. Lets it be a hearth, a harbour in the violent storm of her peoples' future.

She doesn't waste time with hows or whys. It's stolen time, but that doesn't matter; for now, Nathan is growing up in a world brighter and kinder than he'd ever known, with people he only heard the vaguest stories about.

Uncle Logan. She laughs as she opens her eyes and it's with sheer, vibrant delight. ]

Do you have any idea how much we wanted that?

[ Nathan's future is a bleak, lonely place. Even before they disappeared, there was only so much they could do to mitigate that. ]

Edited 2022-01-30 22:20 (UTC)

[ That laugh, the look on her face -- he has to concentrate on not kissing her again, just to taste a little bit of it. After so long, being with her for real had been so good, almost addictive, and then Duplicity had whisked him away. But now they're here, together, and he feels like a junkie offered another shot at his favorite vice.

He's careful, though, for her sake, and for Scott's sake. Just reaches his arm along the back of the couch so he can touch her shoulder. ]

Yeah, kinda. [ He'd been witness to some of that joy, after all. The small moments of them figuring out how to be a family. That thought brings him to memories and regrets of his own. ]

My kids are there, Jeannie, the ones that wanna know me. Akihiro, Laura, Gabby. They're -- we've got a chance on Krakoa. Time to figure out who we are to each other. I never thought we'd have that.

[ So many people never realise how careful Logan can be, how tender. Quite gratitude and endless fondness radiate into that touch, and she reaches up to lay her own hand over his, feather-light. ]

Everything we ever wanted. [ Well, not quite; she'd prefer a world where mutantkind didn't have to cloister themselves, and wishes the future had turned in that direction. She wants to keep fighting for that.

But damn, does a true sanctuary sound nice in the meantime. A place where they have time to breath, and mend, and grow. The school had been that for her, but it had stopped feeling safe a very long time ago and apparently that just gets worse, not better.

More children slaughtered on their lawn. More graves and statues and useless apologies.

Her hand has gone tight above his, and tight back home in her own sheets; she relaxes it with a slight, rueful smile. ]

I'd call it too good to be true but I suppose Sinister hanging around like a bad smell mitigates things.

[ She's trying to sound light, but that smiles flickers into a scowl for a moment. Her children and Logan's, that's amazing, but having them anywhere near Sinister, or Apocalypse?

She doesn't need to tell him what either did to their son, but there are ripples of memory all the same, jagged flashes disrupting the landscape; desperate chaos in the ancient catacombs where Phoenix died, trembling flesh warping into steel beneath Hank's gentle fingers, becoming a knight in shining armour in Nate's psyche only to realise it was futile.

When her eyes focus on him properly again, her expression is a blend of aching hope and profound weariness. ]

Edited 2022-02-01 08:33 (UTC)

[ He has his own problems with Essex and the rest of the crew they've assembled around the Council tables. There are plenty of mutants welcomed to Krakoa's verdant shores that he'd rather see in the darkest pits of Hell, but change has come, and with it the realisation that maybe it's worth more than just one man's grudges.

Jeannie, though -- he doesn't like that look in her eyes, nor the way Scott had veered close to a panic attack when he'd mentioned it. It's easier for him to understand their pain than to weigh his own, especially when he knows there are plenty around who think he'd be better off locked away too. There's a reason he withheld so much of X-Force from Jean and why he's keeping a high wall around it now. ]

Nothing's ever easy. Not for us. [ He picks up on some of the thoughts floating between them. He had been Apocalypse's henchman for a while, his Death. It's not something he likes to remember for very long.

He pulls his hand out from underneath hers and gently brushes his fingers over her cheek, touches her brow with his thumb, the small fond touches he hasn't been able to indulge in for months. ]

But it's worth it. Havin' you in my arms is one of the reasons why.

[ She believes so fiercely, so desperately, in redemption; how could she not? Phoenix, she'd said once, is not about vengeance, and neither are the X-Men.

But there have always been exceptions, hate too vast and too ugly to allow that sort of grace. When she and Nathan killed Apocalypse, she'd felt nothing but vicious satisfaction. It's hard to conceive of circumstances where she'd do anything else; not after what he'd done to people she loved, not after living through a world remade in his image.

That isn't the sort of person she feels comfortable being. She wants moments like this, tranquil and tender, to matter more. She wants -

She wants the balance to come down on the side of love. ]

I don't trust it. But I do trust you.

[ She hasn't noticed her clothing flickering again, from black and bronze to white and gold. ]

[ He knows that outfit. It hurts to see it here, but it's comforting, too. What it says about her state of mind.

Leaning in, he follows the path of his thumb with the brush of his lips, then nudges his not-really-there forehead against hers. Takes a breath there, remembering. ]

No matter what happens, Jeannie. You and me in a blaze of glory.

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