Present Time
Scott felt Jean's touch, light and gentle on the edges of his mind.
--He's unconscious.--
Logan--Scott pushed the thoughts out of his mind, feeling Jean's retreat as well. Instinctively understanding his need for space right now in his own thoughts. Not quite up to acknowledging what he was going to do, not yet.
It'd been enough when Logan had sensed it in Jean--he'd felt the shockwave wash through their connection, pitying Ororo who was still in New York and being less competent with shields. Logan, going toward Rogue, blank horror a rush that Scott in the car hadn't been able to block, sensing it all through Jean and Logan at the same time--
--and mercifully brief, merciful maybe for Logan, too, and Rogue had come back down the stairs only minutes later, gloves clasped in one steady hand.
"About two hours," she said briefly as she got in the car, eyes very old and very distant. Rubbing her temples lightly with the tips of her fingers. "At least, that should be about right. Jeannie's staying so he has--someone here. I--it should be over before he wakes up. You'll come back--" she sent him a sideways glance and Scott nodded tightly.
Logan. God.
Closing his fingers over the steering wheel, Scott pulled out of the apartment building's parking lot, forcing himself to stop casting surreptitious glances at her as she leaned her head against the window. Eyes closed and breathing deeply, hands clenched over the leather in her lap. Pushing her hair back with one hand, he saw the dull line of metal around her throat, but the turn-off back to Salem was coming up too fast for him to wonder what it was.
"Is it up?" Marie asked softly--slight drawl he hadn't heard before. Scott swallowed hard and concentrated on the road.
"Yeah. He--didn't have time to move it to Salem, so we're doing it from the school. The range is longer than the original, so it should reach New York without much--many problems." He was beginning to babble and that was just--surreal. This entire conversation was surreal, though. "Marie--"
"Where is he setting up?" she asked. "On the roof? I know the first trial was performed from up there, to check the range and power levels. I saw the scaffolding."
"Yes." Easier just to answer questions, let reflex take him. "Polaris--"
"I'm not charging with Polaris," Rogue said, and Scott blinked, tossing her a sideways glance. Nothing readable there, and it reminded him of his first view of her in the dining room only--what, a week or two ago? He remembered how young she'd looked, but now--that was gone. As if something had stripped her down to essentials--pure, clear line of her profile, tight lips, and the dark eyes that seemed unable to quite fix on anything. He could hear the chafe of flesh on leather from the gloves on her lap. "We're sticking to the original formula. Magneto goes up there with me." Her mouth curved up, glancing at Scott. Almost a smile at any other time. "Johnny was right, you know. Erik would have sold his soul to get the original absorber. The count is close to one hundred thousand bodies between Salem and New York with all the imports you've been doing. I suppose he didn't want to take the chance of something going wrong."
That explained the speed, at least. He wouldn't want Raven or any of the other hardliners, to figure out what he was going to do. It was dangerous--even if he'd survived the first two times. Too dangerous. They needed Erik too badly.
"I'll be up there, too," Scott said, and he caught an unguarded expression chase its way across Marie's face. Eyes going very wide and very dark, pupil swallowing the iris, and her mouth opened briefly. Then a little frown, before she looked away. "You're not--you're not going to have to go up there alone."
Her head turned, eyes flickering to her lap, and Scott could almost see the leather stretch, before her hands relaxed and he got his eyes back to the road.
"Scott, can I ask you something?"
Swallowing, Scott nodded.
"All--the pictures you used. During the war. Logan drew them, didn't he?" A quick glance told him nothing--the fall of hair obscured her face. Scott wondered what she wanted to hear but--. No. Truth this time. God knew, they all owed her that.
"Yes. Erik--found them first. He used them to intensify European sympathy for the war in countries where mutants weren't being--persecuted."
"They were useful?" There was an unspoken intensity behind her question that Scott couldn't quite identify. Taking a breath, Scott thought carefully.
"We needed a symbol. We didn't have one. When Logan and I found out--during recruitment, actually, we found the first of them." Scott struggled a little, looking for words--but this wasn't a mutant rally or a speech or anything he could use his usual skills. Just a conversation, beside the girl whose memory they had exploited. Taking another breath, he evened out his thoughts. "You became a symbol, Marie. It was important--more important than even we knew until it was almost over. When people--when they understood what you were willing to die for--" But he cut it off, teeth locking together. She hadn't been willing.
"Scott." Her fingers brushed his thigh, quick and light, as if she was afraid of leaving fingerprints on his jeans. "No. This--believe it or not, I understand why you did it. I even--I have to say, it's good THAT you did." Amusement and something else he couldn't define. "I remember--I have some of the memories--yours and Kitty's and Logan's." Her head tilted just a little. "I understand how you needed the symbol and why. When--Jeannie told me little girls these days learn the story of Rogue just like George Washington. That true?"
Scott smiled a little.
"Required material in class, Marie."
"Yeah." Marie's eyes grew distant again. "We--never had that. A single symbol, in the other world." Her face grew pensive and Scott wondered what she was thinking. "We had the dream, you know--but never a united vision like that, to pull all mutantkind together. We had Erik's interpretation and Xavier's interpretation, and well, some others that I wish I had time to tell you about."
Scott nodded mutely.
"And I--I never thought how important that was, you know? To have that, not until here when I got to see it. It's a powerful thing, a symbol, to pull people together like that." Marie stopped and Scott shot her a quick glance, but her face was only thoughtful. "What I'll do today--it'll be there too, won't it? In the stories?"
Yes. It would. Scott wondered if she wanted to hear that. "Yes. It will."
She nodded, as if she expected that.
"Start it with 'once upon a time' maybe," she said with a grin that lit up her face, and Scott blinked, fixing his gaze on the road again. "Don't, Scott--gallows humor. I get this way. Picked it up from Logan once upon a time myself. It's just--it's a weird feeling. To know that I can change things so much. I hated my powers--I still do, I suppose. Until Jean helped, I couldn't control them, but now--now that I can, it doesn't seem much better. What earthly use is absorbing anyway? Just a taker, as far as I can tell, a glorified thief. Sort of a joke I made once--probably only funny to me--that when someone said they wanted *everything*, I was the first person that could actually *have* everything I wanted. Just with this." She lifted one slim hand, wiggling her bare fingers in the air. "I--turn-off to Westchester, Scott."
Scott pulled in, and Marie settled back in her seat. Hair covering her face and he wondered what she was thinking.
And he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Everyone was gathering to watch--the wave didn't affect mutants, so while the school had been evacuated, most were outside to watch, and Marie had turned off the projector, so thick dark hair instead of blonde was visible.
The stares were--uncomfortable. People moving out of the way of the car as Scott parked it in the stone of the driveway, and Marie got out, pushing back her hair and looking around her as if she'd never seen the school before.
God, so young. Seventeen had been young--carrying her body down from the Statue that long-ago day. This, though--
"Scott." Someone was breaking through the crowd, and Scott raised a hand to block a little of the sun. Bobby, running full-tilt across the yard, hair a mess and shirt half-unbuttoned, barely glancing at Marie. Which in itself was a warning, and Scott took a few steps before Bobby came to a skidding stop.
"Johnny's gone," Bobby said breathlessly, and Scott frowned.
"What do you mean--we evacuated--"
"No--his stuff, all gone. He--he cleaned out our room. I don't know--Scott-" Bobby stopped, breathless, and Scott felt the first trickles of genuine alarm. "He was in the sublevels--I went down to check and the--his codes were last. He--Scott, I think he left. For good."
Scott froze for a second, thinking of the computers, the information downstairs.
"Did he--"
Bobby was quick.
"I think he accessed the mainframe, but I don't know what he did. I mean, Kitty's protections, I don't think he could have done anything, and anything he could do, Kitty could fix, you know? But--" Bobby was blanched so pale Scott reached out, meaning to steady him. "Scott, he didn't--I mean--"
"No. There's nothing he could have gotten that would hurt us, Bobby. His access isn't that high. And--I don't think--" No, that wasn't true. Scott did think--he'd been somewhat aware of St. John's disaffection for awhile, but--. There hadn't been time for that and everything else. He should have made time. "We'll--we'll handle it after. Where's Kitty?"
"Gone to see if she can trace him," Bobby answered. His eyes flickered to Marie and stayed there briefly, but not long. Too caught up in the moment. "I'm going to New York--Hank was in the zone, and I think--I mean, I--I need to find him, Scott. Talk to him. I don't want--" Bobby stopped, taking a breath, slim body almost shaking. "I need to find him, Scott."
"Go ahead. Take my car." Scott gave him the keys and Bobby ducked by him, already reaching for the door. A glance down showed a fine line of frost on the bricks, melting beneath the dying sun, and he sighed a little, wondering what condition his car would be in when he got it back. Probably nothing useful. Turning, he caught sight of Marie, hand on Bobby's door and leaning close.
He couldn't hear what they said, but Marie nodded and straightened, and Bobby jerked the door closed and pulled out, rushing toward the gate in his usual breakneck speed. No, he wouldn't get the car back in any condition to be driven.
"Ready?" she asked, and then walked by him. The crowd parted like water for her--students, teachers, everyone. Silence like something living--and it hit Scott all over again, the power of a legend. The power *she* had, right this moment, the power they'd given her with the lie. They watched her like a religious experience in progress and Scott swallowed hard. "Oh." She came to a stop, and Scott saw two uniformed bodies at the door of the school. "Um, Scott? I think--looks like Raven made it after all."
Who the *hell* had told her about this? Scott moved up--they recognized him on sight and nodded, but their gazes fixed on Marie in something close to awe. He couldn't quite blame them. As they stepped aside, Marie's head tilted a little, and he saw something like a smile turn up her mouth. Disappearing almost instantly when she saw his gaze, and she shrugged.
"Hey, President Kelley decided to watch too. Nice to know. I'm going to miss hearing these stories, Scott. I never--you know, I wish I'd read the ones the little kids got about me, the original one." She shrugged as she opened the door, walking inside the silent building. Ghostly, almost, and Scott shivered a little. "Sort of seemed morbid, but now--I wish I'd heard it." As she placed a hand on the banister, there was another flickering gaze, fixed on him with an intensity that seemed to reach beneath his face and go searching through his mind.
Another little smile, and she took the steps two at a time. Scott forced himself to follow.
"I'm--you know, Johnny. Don't be too hard on him." He couldn't see her face now, two steps in front of him, and Scott worked a little to catch up with her on the landing. "He's--he's a believer, Scott."
"You think he changed sides, too?" Hard to think, that Johnny--. Damn. Later. Much later.
"Maybe," she answered softly. "What's the penalty for that?"
"There's not one," Scott answered, still trying to process--well, everything. Too much to deal with right now. "It's--he's suffered enough. If--he can't stay in this zone, of course, but--he can go somewhere else. Join one of the human-rights groups. He'd be a good leader for them, too, being a camp survivor."
"Yeah," Marie answered. "He would be, wouldn't he? He--told me. About it, a little." Scott blinked in shock, but Marie was still talking. "About how he blew the school. What he went through. Hank didn't go through camp trauma, so he's not quite as influential. And his FoH alliances probably piss off other mutants, but Johnny--he'll do it better, I think." Marie shot Scott a sideways glance as they came to the top of the stairs. "I was thinking about--about that."
"About Johnny?" Why--
"Just in general. You're a good leader--you got everyone through the war. Did you always think it would be this way?"
Scott thought of the camps that had once made him sick--still did, in some part of him that Xavier still lived in, quiet voice and inescapable presence.
"I don't know."
"Would you have fought for this? Those--those years of the war, when you were fighting--was this what you saw? What you envisioned for the future?"
Scott paused and Marie did too, studying him now with an intense look of concentration, and he wondered what it meant. But--
--was this what he wanted? If he'd had the power at the end, or the necessary numbers, or God, just a little less need for revenge that was still running through him hot and fast back then, still living his own memories, Jean's, Ororo's, Logan's. Still the blank horror of Palm Beach and the bodies he'd help bury, the smells of the lab and the nightmare they'd found on the lower levels--almost mundane compared to the neat, insanely clean files on the computers he'd read for hours because he couldn't make himself stop.
It was a hard question, and he'd asked himself that so many times before, but now--
"No," he said slowly, and Marie's head tilted. "I wouldn't have--no."
Marie nodded slowly, some strange tension leaking away, and she turned down the hall, toward the last set of stairs that went to the roof. As Scott caught up to her, he saw her hands were twisting the leather again.
"You--after this, everything changes? The camps, everything--you'll stop it? All of it?"
Scott stared at her for a long moment--the feeling from her he couldn't quite identify, something that skimmed fear and hope and anger and resignation, but over it all… Over it all, something else entirely. He would have called it excitement, but….
"Yes." Easy promise to make, and he thought of her in Erik's office, the faith he had no idea where she'd picked up. "Marie?"
She looked up, mild eyes and serene face, like every statue they'd created of her, and something like nausea rolled in Scott's stomach. He could still stop this--or could try, anyway. Probably couldn't win, not with Erik's people and God, Raven's people here. The last stairs were so close and she stopped at the bottom.
"Are you sure?"
Her head tilted briefly, then she nodded thoughtfully.
"I've been sure for longer than I thought, Scott. Go back downstairs now."
Freezing on the first step, he looked at her. Intense concentration on her face.
"Marie--"
"Go back downstairs. Move everyone back." Flickering her gloves up, he saw the watch in her palm, and she glanced down at it. Gently, she pressed it into his hand and stepped back. "Thirty feet should be enough. I set this earlier. You have enough time."
She took the stairs two at a time, and Scott grabbed the banister, coming up behind her.
"What?"
She turned, and the grin on her face hurt to see. Serenity, yes, and grief and anger, and so much more.
"I wanted to do this a little differently, but you sort of changed things a little. So. Do what I said. Go back downstairs. Get everyone back. I don't know how much he can control in fallout, so better safe than sorry."
What--
"Marie--" Too damned much was happening, Scott couldn't focus on anything. The watch was body-warm in his hand, ticking obscenely loud in the quiet, and Marie was watching him with a little smile that seemed light years from anything he'd ever have expected to see.
"This is the only choice I can give you. You can figure out what the hell I'm talking about or you can live and can keep your word. That's it, Scott. You have about three minutes. Go." Little, quick flash of--God, joy. Utter, unmistakable joy, maybe realization, maybe understanding or all of it together. "By the way--this time, get the details right, when they tell the story? This one's gonna be different."
And she turned, trotting up the stairs, and Scott looked down. Old fashioned pocket watch, and someone had drawn a dot in red marker on the surface.
Three minutes.
Slowly, he turned around.
"Fallout." Moving faster, toward the stairs, then down and outside before he was quite aware of what he was doing, shouting orders that they instinctively obeyed, years of indoctrination paying off. Scott circled the building and watched as Marie walked to the posts, and she looked down, seeing him.
And he couldn't possibly see her smile.
It was like watching slow-motion on a television, nothing he could change. Erik was moving toward her and both hand went out, touching him--and Scott froze when Erik did--
*"What I'll do today--it'll be there too, won't it? In the stories?"*
"Marie," he said slowly, and felt it--Jean in his mind now, sudden and sharp, maybe his shields were weakening.
--Scott, what's wrong?--
--Can you feel Johnny?-- he asked, watching the hold continue, longer than he would have expected. --Jean--
--Not at this range to Westchester.-- She sounded tired, impatient, still recovering from her wound, he remembered, and it bothered him a little, because he was missing something. --What's going on? You're….--
Erik hit the platform with a sound that Scott was too far away to hear--but Marie was already on the posts, the machine moving. Raven was taking a step toward Erik, and Marie was--
--looking at him again, before her eyes closed, head back, and he looked down at the watch.
Instinct took him backward--moving faster than he'd known he could move, the ground seeming to shift underneath him, and he could still see Raven, kneeling beside Erik's body, coming to her feet suddenly and too fast, changing into her natural form right in front of his eyes. She hadn't done that in public in seven years.
--Scott?--
*"This one's gonna be different."*
The machine was already going, wave spreading out far and wide, and Scott thought he heard screams, but they could have been Raven's or Marie's, he couldn't be sure. Something caught beneath his shoe and Scott hit the ground, jarring wrist and palm, dirt shoved up beneath his fingernails, and he instinctively shut his eyes as he felt for his visor to make sure it was still in place. When he opened his eyes, he looked at the watch and the hand was on the line.
It started like something out of a movie--not an explosion nearly so much as a pure wall of white flame, coming up fast and furious from around the ground of the school. Mouth dry, Scott heard now the screams from behind him, people yelling questions, but he couldn't quite take his eyes away from the platform and the wave that--
--would not reach even Salem, and Rogue was up there.
Instantly, it too, was engulfed, before Raven had time to even change form again, and Scott knew Johnny's range down to the inch. Spinning on the ground, looking, and found him, as if he wanted to be found, no surprise there, Johnny'd never been one to deny his own complicity.
Sitting quietly on the picnic table, knees drawn up to his chest, eyes dilated completely, staring at the school with a blank face. Sweat beading on his forehead and soaking into his hair, and Scott was feeling the heat, too, knew he had to get back further. Getting to his feet somehow, stumbling toward him, not sure what he'd do when he got there--
Johnny looked at him as he collapsed by the picnic table. Nothing for an endless second, then Johnny reached behind him, dropping a bag by Scott on the ground.
"Bobby didn't look too closely." It was heavy, and Scott fingered it up numbly. "He checked the mainframe, but it's backed-up in New York. Hank should have it all by now. I think I saved everything we'd need. Kick-ass network connections we got. Thank God Kitty wasn't around to see what I was doing and cut the connection."
Johnny's gaze went back to the fire, watching for a few minutes as he forced it to his will, and Scott had seen it a hundred times before when Jean channeled through him--but this was more than mere fire. He wasn't trying to stop anything--this was total dissolution, and then Johnny shook his head. One slim hand went to his forehead, wiping sweat away with trembling fingers.
"You--"
"Look in the bag," Johnny said mildly.
As suddenly as it had begun, the fire was gone. Nothing but sparkling afterflashes in Scott's corneas, and he rubbed his eyes, breathing in the smell of ash and charred bodies. When he looked again, there was nothing left of the Mansion but the burned-out remains, crumbling where they stood. Easily, Johnny pushed himself off the table, swaying briefly before darting out a hand to grab the edge of the table.
"God, it's strong. I--haven't done that since the last time." Johnny ran a hand across his forehead again, and his palm came away slick.
"She--planned this, didn't she?" Unthinkable, unbelievable, but there. Like Johnny standing beside him and the building--the building was gone.
Johnny smiled a little.
"Yeah. She said--said you needed a new symbol, to start everything over again." Johnny shrugged a little, mouth soft and strangely dreamy. "Dead symbol, living legend, so the stories would be true. That when she died, she died for something she believed in, and she died for everyone. And that everyone get it right." Sideways glance at Scott, taking him in with a single look. "She said you'd do it. And you'd get the details right."
*"It's a powerful thing, a symbol, to pull people together like that."*
"She--"
"Yeah." Johnny shook his head again, smiling now. Ash from the air clinging to his skin, black patches growing on his clothes, and swaying on his feet, but the energy coursing through him was almost visible to the naked eye. "Well, wanna help?"
Scott blinked and the bag parted under his hand--his uniform. Stared down at it.
"Suit up. This is my fire, won't hurt me, but you might get injured. Good of you to fireproof the uniforms. Boots are at the bottom. Come on."
"What?"
Johnny pushed sweaty hair back, narrowing his gaze on the building thoughtfully. The blue eyes were circled in red and shadowed as they watched the flames die.
"Promised her burial," Johnny said slowly, scrubbing a hand briefly across his face. "Somewhere else. Where people could see. She hated that tomb." The pause seemed to echo a little too long, and Scott looked at the blackened remains of the school. Shock was still too close--distantly, he could hear the people, students and teachers, voices yelling and milling confusion all around them, but it didn't quite touch him, any of it.
"Her body--"
"Marie could walk through fire," Johnny answered, taking a few tentative steps before stumbling again. When he looked back, Scott couldn't read anything on his face but pure exhaustion. "Even I can't break invulnerability." Another step, and Scott found his feet, straightening. "You promised her, didn't you?"
One day, he'd be able to think about this, put it in perspective, but--not right now. It was seven years ago he buried her the first time, and it was like living life all over again. Something thickened inside him, maybe exultation and anger and the part of him that still belonged to Xavier, and he found himself nodding slowly.
"Yes. I promised."
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