*


She doesn’t leave her apartment for nearly a week, eating almost exclusively delivery sushi and Indian food and responding to Logan’s emails about training sessions and sports-related injustices with her regular blank messages. And then, just like that, it is her twenty-first birthday.

She has already decided she will call Logan, but she delays her anticipation until the late afternoon. Around two o’clock, her neighbor fuck-buddy knocks on her door and they have sex—probably for the last time, she thinks to herself. She doesn’t tell Brian or Byron that it is her birthday.

At five o’clock, she goes to the payphone near her building, with yet another roll of laundry quarters. Logan answers before the phone even finishes the first ring.

“That you, kid?”

Her somewhat stunned silence is the response. It is strange for him to answer so quickly. He must have been waiting for her, knowing it was her birthday; although there is something in his voice she cannot quite identify, which doesn’t sound like congratulatory cheer.

Then he says, “Hank’s at the mansion right now.”

She doesn’t think anything of it, then gasps so loudly there is no way he has not heard it.

“Yeah,” he says. “He just told me that ‘apparently, a small percentage of mutants are experiencing gradual weakening of the cure serum’s effects.’”

The last half of this sentence is spoken in an exaggerated accent that is meant to imitate Hank’s voice. She wants to say, That’s not a regional accent, that’s just what sentences sound like when you use all eight parts of speech.

Logan continues, “And Storm said she thought you were part of that percentage.”

He sounds far less angry than she had been expecting him to sound when he discovered the news about the cure, but she is not sure she likes whatever it is that is now standing in the place of anger in his voice.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he says, and she thinks it might be pity—and fuck him, if that’s the case. “I know you really wanted it to work.”

She wants to hang up the phone now. If he gives her any more kind, considerate words, she is going to hang up the phone with a bang so loud his sensitive hearing will mistake it for a car bomb.

“Though—it’s kind of a dick thing to say, but—I’d be kinda happy if it’s true,” he says, and so she doesn’t hang up, but puts another quarter in the payphone, and waits.

“I mean, I get why you did it. I just felt kinda—I don’t know.” He makes a sound, and she can hear his grimace through the phone.

“I don’t know. Lonely, I guess. Left behind. Or something. And I didn’t want—I didn’t want.”

She is not sure she wants to hear him say, I didn’t want to lose you, too.

But he says it anyway. Then, after a little laugh: “Fuckin’ selfish, I know.”

She thinks, this isn’t the best birthday, but it isn’t the worst, either.

Then he says, in a low voice, “When you’re done doing what you need to do, come back.”

She chokes. Her skin is starting to buzz, and it isn’t her mutation, but her own terror and dread. She had thought he knew better to ask something like that; had thought he would never use their unmentioned but unmistakable bond to invoke that kind of obligation from her. She thought they had an understanding about what their relationship was and was not. He respected her boundaries infinitely, as she respected his. They are not beholden to each other. Not family, not friends, not lovers. Something else. Something sharper than love, starker than passion.

But he says, “Come back,” in a strangled voice that she barely recognizes, and she thinks, you put your hand on my face when you thought I was dead; and in the forest looking for Jean, Erik held you up like a puppet, and it must have hurt like hell, to be lifted by your skeleton.

“Come back,” he says again, and, “Come back,” again, and again, softer, softer, “Come back.”

And then he is silent for a long time, and she has to put in two more quarters until she hears him finally croak, “Happy birthday, kid.” Then there is a rustle in her ear as the phone pulls away from his beard, and he hangs up the phone.


*


That night she is waiting at Bob’s Donuts long before Erik shuffles through the door, and she is once again struck by how old he looks.

He seems genuinely surprised to see her again. She catches his eye and points down in front of her, where there are two plates, each with an apple fritter.

“I was certain I would never see you again, my dear,” he says when he joins her at the bar. Then he looks down at her hands, which are gloved again. “Ah,” he says.

“Don’t,” she says, and slides one of the plates over to him. “Just take the peace offering.”

“While I am generally opposed to empty diplomatic gestures,” he says, smiling, “I will accept, just this once.”

They eat in silence for a few minutes, both unsure how to begin speaking to each other again.

She sees another old man, seated a table away, glance at Erik, look away, then glance at him again, as if trying to figure out whether he is an old friend, colleague, or neighbor. She holds her breath, but the man returns to his donut and does not look their way again.

Finally, she says, “It’s my birthday.”

Erik blinks, stares at her. “Your birthday? Today?” She nods, her mouth still full. “How old are you?” he asks.

“Twenty-one,” she says, then snorts and adds, “Old enough to drink legally.”

“Twenty-one,” he repeats in disbelief. “I thought you were younger than that.”

“Twenty-one is still young.”

“It is,” he agrees. “But it’s not so young, either.” He shrugs, brushes flakes of sugar glaze from his fingers and looks around. “Well? What are you doing here with this old man? Shouldn’t you be gallivanting about town with people your own age, doing all manner of things you’ll regret in the morning?”

She wiggles her gloved hand at him. “Not taking the chance anymore.”

He gazes at her. “No, you aren’t, are you,” he observes. Then he looks down at her donut. “Finish that, and then we’ll go.”

“Where?”

“Where” turns out to be a dark and nearly empty Irish-American pub a few blocks away, run by an older mutant who stands up straighter when Erik enters the bar, bowing his head in respect. The bartender, covered in tattoos and piercings, also smiles knowingly, greeting Erik with a tender, “Hey, boss.”

“Two vodka shots,” Erik calls pleasantly. “It’s the young lady’s twenty-first birthday.”

“Congratulations, honey,” the bartender says. “Can I see some I.D., though? Sorry, but—”

Rogue waves away his apology and displays her I.D. The man looks down at the picture, furrows his brow, then looks back up at her, comprehension dawning on his face.

“Liked your hair better before,” he says kindly. “Two shots of Polish vodka, on the house.”

Erik picks his shot glass up, nods his head at her. “To your health, my dear.”

This feels like a very strange dream, watching Erik Lehnsherr expertly down a vodka shot. She does the same, much less expertly. She coughs heavily. “Jesus Christ,” she says. “That burns like hell. And tastes like it.”

“Another two shots, please, Juan,” Erik says, and the bartender—Juan—pours two more shots.

The second shot burns less, and she thinks it is because her throat is still in shock from the first. “I never took you for a drinker,” she says, when she can speak again.

Erik chuckles. “In some ways I’ve remained a German who also lived in Poland, in that I generally prefer alcohol to water.” He gestures to the bar. “They carry a brand of Polish vodka here that I have grown quite fond of.”

“They know you,” she comments as the bartender retreats to another corner of the bar, busying himself by discreetly wiping glasses. “I thought no one here knew who you were.”

“They were former members of the Brotherhood,” he informs her.

Her hands stiffen, her blood runs cold, the bar stool seems to sway beneath her. Thinking, they might have fought Bobby, Storm, Logan—

“Relax, child,” Erik says crisply. “These two helped run an underground newsletter; they didn’t fight at Alcatraz. But their friends did.”

She visibly relaxes, and this only seems to anger him more. “But if they had fought, what of it? Is it so difficult to conceive of the urgency of their struggle? That they would feel compelled to oppose a policy of state terror and repression that excluded them from the protection of juridical law and forcefully claimed ownership over their biological lives?”

He is breathing hard now. “That we would have the audacity to demand a world in which rights are universal—to demand that our lives also be conceived of as lives?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but Erik is not done, leaning forward, gripping his empty shot glass so hard she thinks it will break. “You do know what was done to your Wolverine, don’t you? You wouldn’t have tried to stop that—you wouldn’t have lashed out against the world that sanctioned such a thing?”

He laughs bitterly. “It may come as a surprise to you, but not everyone has been served well by your professor’s ‘glorified U.N. Peacekeepers’ model of mutant-human relations.”

Juan the bartender, who has been listening to this speech from the other side of the bar, approaches, silently pours another two shots into their glasses, then just as silently walks away again.

Erik heaves a sigh, turns his head, picks up the full shot glass. His hand is shaking as he takes the shot. “My apologies, my dear. It’s your birthday, and I don’t care to start another argument with you.”

“You’ve already started one,” she hisses, also shaking. “How dare you. Don’t talk to me like I don’t know anything. They came to the mansion, they shot at children. I know what’s at stake as much as anybody.”

“And yet you willingly took their cure,” he charges. “They told you that you were dangerous, that you needed to be controlled, and you believed them.”

She takes the shot glass and downs it. “You don’t know anything,” she says, swallowing. “I am dangerous—the people I cared for—”

“The people you cared for knew full well who and what you are, and loved you for it, not in spite of it, and you slapped them in the face with your pathetic attempt at normalcy,” he counters fiercely. “Do you think I don’t know why you’re still alive today—what your Wolverine did for you after I nearly killed you?”

“And it nearly killed him,” she declares.

“Precisely,” he says. “You seem to think that if you ignore the reality of your mutation and its power, you can live a life without vulnerability; a life in which you are exposed to no one and endanger no one, and in which no one is exposed to you or endangered by you. But there is no such life.”

“Listen to me, my dear.” He leans forward and grasps her gloved hand, more tightly than she would have thought his aged hands capable.

“We will, all of us, lose each other,” he says. “That fact makes us.”

She shakes her head, and she is already drunk, and she doesn’t want to hear this, doesn’t want the weight of his trembling hand on hers, doesn’t want his eyes, steady as stone, staring into hers.

“That we can undo others; that we can be undone by others. But you refuse to know that. You cut off your arm because you don’t wish to choke the one you love, rather than recognizing that an arm can do many things.”

She is still shaking her head, saying, “That doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m doing—it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be careful—”

“You’re not careful, you’re terrified,” he says, still grasping her hand. “Terrified that you will one day be responsible for the death of someone you love; terrified that for all your strength and control, the fateful moment may come when you are unable to stop yourself, when you realize that you are, in fact, not stronger than your power, and you will have the unbearable experience of holding someone’s death in your own hands.”

His voice lowers. “As your Wolverine did, with Jean.”

“Don’t,” she says.

His gaze does not waver. “Do you think your fears are unique? Do you think that was easy for him? Could you ever do what he did?”

She yanks her hand back. “Could you?” she retorts.

Though he is still looking at her, he is not seeing her anymore. “I would like to think so,” he murmurs.

He makes a gesture for another shot, and Juan refills both of their shot glasses yet again. On his right arm, she sees the tattoo of a woman with no arms, and no legs; only a human head and a snake’s body, sleek and green. Above her, the words, Mi vida es para ti.

And then she hears Erik say, “You know, I nearly killed Charles, once, long ago.”

She shoots a glare back at him. “Haven’t you nearly killed him plenty of times?”

He laughs. “Actually, no—neither of us ever sought to directly harm the other, though I had always accepted that we might be forced into a hostile confrontation at some point. But this happened when we were building Cerebro. We were nearly finished with it, and he was testing it out for the first time.

“You know how Cerebro works, it amplifies a telepath’s abilities, his psychic sensitivities, so to speak. Well, the moment he turned the machine on, something happened—it was probably caused by the unconscious electromagnetic field around my body, and the fact that I was standing so close to him; I still don’t know exactly—and suddenly he was screaming, in agonizing pain.

“I had no idea what was happening. I tried to remove the helmet, but touching him only seemed to make the pain worse. By the time I was able to remove the helmet, he was in a coma. When he woke up, three weeks later, I had already nearly finished my own helmet. After that, I almost never took it off. It’s still the same one.”

Erik takes the shot. She does the same.

Then she says, “I thought that you wore it to protect yourself from his telepathy.”

“Well, it became a convenient accessory, I suppose, when we later found ourselves on opposing sides. Because it was meant to specifically conceal my magnetic field from telepaths, it was difficult for him to sense me normally. Over the years, with improvements in technology, I was able to vastly increase its strength, so that it would shield me from his telepathy entirely. Eventually, he would have had to use his full telepathic ability to locate me, or even read my mind—and doing so would almost certainly kill me in the process. If he so wished.”

Erik smiles and shrugs. “But in the beginning, my helmet’s purpose was to protect Charles from me. Not the other way around.”

She can see a young Erik, eyes wide in horror, staring at Xavier’s unconscious body in the medbay, knowing he had done that to him, with his body—without thinking, without knowing how, just by being there, just by virtue of his own life and its presence. She can see him staying up nights, crafting the circuitry for this ridiculous and unflattering helmet, which he would rarely be convinced to remove.

She whispers, “Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because we all have the same worst fear. Even someone like me,” he says. He shakes his head. “What your Wolverine had to do—” he begins, then pauses. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

He looks down, and his hand tightens into a fist. “I very much regret my role in it,” he says softly, and she knows the magnitude of that admission.

Then he looks up, and he is wearing that knife-edge smile again. “But then,” he says, “at this point, I find that I regret nearly everything.”

She stares at him. “Well, happy fucking birthday to me,” she says, and calls Juan over for another shot, then another, then another.


*


She is almost too drunk to walk by the time the bar closes, so when Erik insists she sleep at his apartment, which is closer than hers—“It’s the least I can do for antagonizing you on your birthday, dear girl”—she does not have the presence of mind to argue with him.

The apartment is unsurprisingly spacious, clean, with minimal furniture and a large window with a view of Coit Tower, and the new bridge in progress. She leans on Erik slightly, still careful to keep a safe barrier between them, as he guides her to the guest bedroom.

“The bathroom is down the hallway to the right,” he says. “I feel you may be visiting it in the middle of the night.”

“Thank you,” she says, and crawls into the bed, grateful for a cool, unmoving surface.

Standing in the doorframe, he watches her for a moment. “I apologize if I was—harsh, this evening. I’m afraid not even I am entirely immune to the effects of Polish vodka.”

She snorts. Her face buried in a pillow that smells like lavender, she asks, “Why’d you tell me all that shit, anyway?”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then she almost does not hear him answer, “At the end of my life, I find myself compelled to tell the truth.”

“You’re not at the end of your life,” she mumbles into the pillow, but he has already closed the door.


*


She dreams of Xavier. In her dream he walks towards her and cups her face with his hand, smiling, and she thinks she is actually Erik, until Xavier says, “I’m glad to see you’re doing well, Rogue.” And she wants to tell him she’s not doing well, she’s not doing well at all; she wants to tell him to be careful, to not touch her face, but she cannot find the words, and it is too late, and he is cupping her cheek with his hand, still smiling, and all the words are gone.


*


She awakens with a massive headache and no idea where she is. It takes her a few minutes to remember the previous night. She groans and tries to fall back asleep, and succeeds, for half an hour, but the sunlight upon her face will not relent, so she sits up, stumbles out of bed.

She licks her lips, in desperate need of a glass of water. She is proud of herself for not throwing up; at least there is that bit of dignity, not having projectile-vomited in Erik Lehnsherr’s million-dollar apartment.

When she opens the door and tries to make her way to the kitchen, she finds Erik already there, seated at a small table, reading a newspaper, drinking a glass of orange juice. “Good morning,” he greets her.

“I’m not so sure,” she mutters, clutching her head. She spots a carafe of water on the kitchen counter, and two tall glasses on the shelf. She takes one glass and fills it with water, gulps it down immediately; then another one, almost as fast. “Thanks for letting me crash here.”

“And how are you feeling now?” he asks. “Like Christmas morning,” she replies.

“Good,” he says pleasantly. “Because I have a favor to ask of you.”

“What, right now?” Still standing, she pours another glass of water for herself. “I don’t think I’m much use for anything at the moment, but shoot.”

“I would like you to take my life,” he says, and she chokes.

When she can breathe again, her shirt is soaked. She whirls around to face him directly. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“As I said last night, I know I am at the end of my life,” he says calmly. “While I can feel my powers returning, I don’t believe I will ever regain the same vitality I had before they were taken away by the cure. And frankly, even if that were not the case, my feelings would be the same.”

He folds the newspaper, placing it on the table, and she sees Hank’s face peering up at them.

“In a time of peace, no one wants to see the old generals and be reminded of the war,” he says. “My place in this world is gone. I can’t go on much longer like this, unrecognized, protected by the few surviving mutants who remember me. And if I were to be publicly captured by the U.S. government—it might do more than simply reopen old wounds. Those looking for a reason to start another war will find it, if I am found alive.”

He gazes at her. “It’s time for me to end my life. And I’m asking you to help me.”

“I’m leaving,” she says. “You’re fucking crazy.”

“My dear—”

“‘My dear’ nothing,” she spits out. “Is that why you were spending so much effort last night trying to convince me not to be afraid of my power? So I would fucking euthanize you?”

“No,” he says. “I only had the idea after I left you to sleep last night.” He lowers his eyes, then looks back at her again. “But I do think doing this might help you to understand the true scope and significance of your gift.”

“You can fuck yourself,” she says again, and slams the half-full glass of water down.

She leaves the kitchen, finds her way to the foyer, where her shoes have been neatly lined up against the wall, next to his much larger ones. She distantly remembers kicking them off with abandon, the night before. She does not want to think of him, bending over to carefully re-arrange her shoes.

Erik has followed her. “At least listen to my reasons,” he says.

She ignores him, sliding her feet into her shoes and turning to open the door. But the lock will not move.

She turns around, and his hand is outstretched towards the door. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I need you to listen to me.”

“I think you’ve done enough talking,” she says. She swipes her hand over the lock, and it pops back with a click. She can hear his sharp intake of breath before she leaves, without looking back.


*


Back at her apartment, she strips off her gloves, all her clothes, and climbs naked into bed. She covers her head with the blanket, feels her head crushing her from within. The idea of using Logan’s healing factor to speed her recovery jumps into her mind, and just the thought of it automatically starts the process. She can feel her headache beginning to clear, recede—and before it goes any further, she shuts the process down instantly, struggling to catch her breath. Feeling much better, feeling much worse.

She thinks of Logan. Logan, teaching children how to throw mutants twice their size and weight. Logan, who receives her calls and talks nonsense to silence. Logan, whose body recovers from everything almost faster than he can feel it.

She knows he must have been able to stop Jean because she wouldn’t have been able to disintegrate him so quickly; not with his healing factor and that damned skeleton. And so he would have been holding her dead body, with its three wounds, in his perfectly unbroken arms, against his totally unmarred chest. His own flesh would have already long moved on. A body that left no time for mourning.

What can she do for him. She had thought this when she had seen him again for the first time, back at the mansion, just after receiving the cure, just after the others had returned from Alcatraz.

He had caught her in the hallway, on the way back from Bobby’s room. “Hey, kid,” he had said, a little too brightly. “Goin’ to train some new blood. You doin’ okay?”

She had only looked at him, and his eyes had widened as he remembered. “Did you do it?” And she had nodded, mutely.

She had wanted to say, I heard about Jean, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—

But he had smiled, just as easily as he had smiled before he let her leave, and then, without hesitation, he had pressed his bare palm against her forehead and said, wondrously, “Well, look at that. Works.”


*


Once again, she doesn’t leave her apartment for a week. She receives an email from Logan nearly every day.

Hey, kid. I know I was kind of weird to you on your birthday. But I meant what I said. I’m still kinda happy your cure is wearing off. Even if that means you might suck the life outta me again. And I really do hope you’ll come back. This place ain’t the same without you. Take care of yourself.

Hey, kid. I bet you’re still hungover from your birthday. Shame I didn’t get to take you out drinking. Weirdest thing happened today. I thought I heard your voice in the hallway. I was sure it was you. But no one was there. I thought I was going crazy. You see what I mean about having to come back? I’m cracking up over here. Take care.

Hey, kid. Took some of the kids to a concert in the city. It wasn’t half bad, but don’t tell ‘em I said that. Band’s called Passion Pit. I thought that a passion pit was a place you drove your girl to make out. Ever heard of ‘em?

Hey, kid. Had a little fight with Storm today. Mostly about you, and how she treated you before you left, and her attitude about the cure. The fight was a long time coming, sort of. It’ll blow over. Anyway, you haven’t responded to any of my emails recently, even with your blank things. You doing okay? Send me a sign.

Hey, kid. I was serious about the sign thing. You okay? Don’t worry me.

She wants to write, I wish I had been strong enough to stay. I wish I had been strong enough to force you to grieve. I wish I had stood next to her grave with you. I wish I could have helped you to feel your loss, to feel your loss like a real, lasting wound. I wish I could have told you how grateful I am that you heal so fast—I wish I could have told you how sorry I am that you heal so fast.

Finally, she brings herself to send yet another blank message, feeling empty, pathetic, cowardly. Almost immediately, there is a response.

Hey, kid. Thanks. Set my mind at ease. Danger Room simulation in five minutes. Gotta go.


*


She finds Erik in Golden Gate Park, not playing chess, but sitting alone on a park bench, watching the chess players.

“My dear,” he says when he sees her approach. “For the second time, I was certain I would never see you again.”

She sits down next to him. She is silent for a long moment. “All right,” she says finally. “I’m listening.”

He glances at her, uncertain. Then he smiles and says, “I’m eighty years old, and that feels like a nice number to end on.”

“Be serious,” she says.

“I am,” he laughs. He goes on, “It would be perfect revenge for the fact that I would have taken your own life, not so long ago.”

“I like that one.”

“Not to mention, I am more or less responsible for most of the suffering and hardships your friends and loved ones have had to endure. Particularly your Wolverine.”

“That’s true.”

“You would gain my formidable powers; though I don’t know how they would translate to you if I am this underpowered—whether or not you would be able to receive the full spectrum of my mutation, that is, or just what’s available to me right now.”

“I see.”

“You would have my memories, which may not actually be such a positive thing, emotionally speaking. Though it does mean you would know all the information regarding my various homes, bank accounts, offshore accounts, et cetera. You would, essentially, inherit my estate. You would be quite rich.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“My dear,” he says, turning to look at her directly. “I must warn you—and this may turn you off from the idea entirely—if you were truly to absorb me to the point of death, I suspect it could result in something akin to a transferring of consciousness. That is to say, you wouldn’t just have my memories—you would have some facsimile of me, myself, my consciousness, alive inside your mind, for an indefinite period of time. I know Charles firmly believed that sort of thing was possible.” He sighs. “In fact, I suspect he did just that, right before Jean destroyed his body.”

“Really?” she asks, and the thought makes her hands tremble with joy. “You think the professor’s alive?”

“I think it’s a possibility his consciousness has survived, yes,” he says. “I always have.”

She blinks. “Then why not—try to find him and—”

“And what?” Erik laughs. “Pick up where we left off?” He shakes his head. “No, my dear. We have been friends and antagonists much longer than anything else we had once been. Life has gone on since then. The past is in the past.” His voice is tender when he adds what she already knows: “Where I cherish it.”

She looks down at her gloved hands. Finally she asks, “Why me, why this way?”

“It seemed like a better idea than throwing myself off the new bridge with rocks in my pockets,” he jokes.

Then his face softens. “And because I saw a possibility in which my death could be a gift.”

Still looking at her hands, she thinks. Thinks about Erik, about Xavier, about Jean, about Logan. About a ridiculous metal helmet. About blinding pain caused by the one you love, the one who loves you. About the wall of water crashing over the body of the woman who had just saved her life. About something that hurts every time, and heals every time.

She thinks about her hands, about what they can do. What she can do. About every cell of her body open, bare, exposed. About the limit between everything that is her, and everything that wasn’t. About infinite possibility and infinite vulnerability. About standing inside her body, and trusting it to be good.

“Okay,” she whispers, and when Erik looks at her, it is an expression she has never seen before, and does not recall from any of his memories. He smiles, and there is no knife-edge in it, no melancholy Casanova allure. Only his pure, open gratitude, and for the first time she sees that his eyes are blue.

“Where—” she asks, but finds she cannot speak.

He smiles. “Here is all right,” he suggests.

“Here?” she cries out. “Now?”

He gestures down at himself. “I might have been able to pass mostly unnoticed all this time, but there would be no way for you to be able to successfully bury my body without someone realizing who I really am, which in turn would immediately draw suspicion and scrutiny upon you.” She opens her mouth to protest, but he shakes his head.

“It’s better if you leave it here—it’s better if they think they just found Magneto, all alone, having mysteriously and miraculously survived the events at Alcatraz, now dead from old age.”

“So what—” she chokes. “I should just walk away afterwards?”

“Ideally, you would wait until no one else was in sight, then slip discreetly away,” he explains. He gestures around the park. “There aren’t many people here today, luckily.”

Stricken at the thought, she insists, “I’m not going to just leave you here.”

“You’re not leaving me here,” he says, and her chest pains her.

Then he looks down at her hand, says, “May I?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” she yells, “I’m not ready, wait, wait, just wait.” He starts to laugh. “I have things I want to ask you still, I have things I want to know—”

“All right,” he says patiently, amusedly.

Abruptly, she asks, “Why do you always call him my Wolverine?”

He looks at her, puzzled. “Isn’t he?”

“You said yourself he loved Jean,” she says, and it sounds a little too much like a whine for her own taste, and she feels her age acutely.

“Because he obviously did and most likely still does, very much,” he says, speaking to her as if she is a particularly slow child. “Do you think that somehow precludes his connection to you?”

She doesn’t know what to say. He smiles. “I often thought that, although I loved Charles, in a way, it was also something else entirely; some other, stranger, deeper thing. Not family, not friends, not only lovers. Something sharper than love, starker than passion.”

And she freezes, hearing his words in her ears, his words in her mind, the echo she has already been living with, and now the tears come fast and hard and hot, spilling from her like blood.

He laughs again. “Oh, my dear,” he says, pulling her head against his shoulder, where she weeps like a child. “My dear.”


*


They sit together for another hour before she is able to remove a single glove. “Wait,” Erik says, and she looks at him, hoping he will have changed his mind.

“Control it,” he says instead.

“What?”

“Your power,” he says. “You know you can. You know you’re capable of accessing much more than you’re brave enough to admit. Control it now, with me.” He holds his hand out to her. “Just hold my hand, before you begin.”

“No, no,” she stammers. “I don’t know, I don’t know, it might start up anyway—”

“That would be fine, too,” he says mildly, “as that is the ultimate objective.”

“Don’t make jokes,” she says, laughing, hating herself for laughing, laughing more, feeling her entire body convulsing with anxiety.

“My dear,” Erik says, and he has called her ‘my dear’ so many times, in so many voices, and yet this time still sounds different. “Please take my hand.”

So she looks down at her own hand, and looks down at his hand: his large, deeply-lined palm turned upwards, waiting in mid-air, for her.

And she trusts it to be good—and puts her small hand in his. And his fingers curl around hers, and he is smiling at her, and he squeezes her hand, and she is laughing, crying, daring to squeeze his hand once, twice, again, again, again. And it feels like the first time, the first time she has ever touched anyone, the first time she has felt what it is to meet someone else’s skin with her own.

Erik draws her close and murmurs, “You see, you see what makes us.”

Then he lowers his chin to his chest, squeezes her hand once more, and, with his eyes closed, says, “Whenever you’re ready.”

And she isn’t ready, not yet, not yet, not yet—and she looks at him, seeing his face, the surprisingly large ears, the shadows beneath his eyes, the overgrown eyebrows, the skin that Xavier touched and loved, and she thinks there are a million things she wants to say to him but she doesn’t know how to speak, doesn’t know how to convey any of these important and wordless things to him—

And her body, which knows better, opens the connection and lays her bare; and she feels Erik’s life coursing into her, and she knows, that’s how, that’s how.

And she can hear him, saying nothing, saying everything; she can feel him giving himself to her, entering the space she has opened for him, and she is thankful, he is thankful, and she knows, she knows, she knows it.

And when the hand she is holding goes slack, the agony of it splits her entire body open, breaks apart the ground beneath her; and as the death fills her hands, she knows an entire world has been lost, she cannot get it back, time will not remake this, this single hollow will never be filled again, and now she can only answer to someone who isn’t there, over and over, over and over: I see, I see, I see what makes us.


*


From a payphone outside the park, she calls the police and, struggling not to scream, says that she saw an old man slumped over a bench in Golden Gate Park, and she thinks he might be dead. She gives the exact location, then hangs up when they ask for her name.


*


She goes to Erik’s apartment, opens the lock with a pass of her hand. It takes her less than half an hour to retrieve all of his credit cards, bank statements, homeowner’s contracts, forms of identity—and in his bedroom she sees the helmet, and she picks it up, placing it in a plastic shopping bag, coddled within one of his wool jackets. And by his bed, she sees a book of poems by Paul Celan, and so she takes that, too.

Back at her own apartment, she books a flight for the next day, this time with Erik’s most recently used credit card.

Her building manager isn’t home, so she leaves a note giving her 30-days-notice and waiving her initial security deposit, along with a check for the next month’s rent.

She has difficulty packing everything back into the bag she originally brought; the helmet takes up a lot of room, but she knows she has to check it. Finally she is able to make everything fit.

That night, when she looks in the mirror as she brushes her teeth, she notices that the white streak has widened, and she cannot distinguish her laughing from her wailing.


*


On the plane, she is reading the Celan book, and her vision blurs as she reads the words:

How you die out in me:
down to the last
worn-out
knot of breath
you’re there, with a
splinter
of life.

And the man next to her is reading a newspaper with the headline: MUTANT TERRORIST MAGNETO FOUND DEAD IN SAN FRANCISCO PARK, OF NATURAL CAUSES.

And she thinks, collapsing over her knees, feeling every piece of metal in the plane in her veins, “You see, my dear, it was better that way.”


*


And when she arrives at the mansion, having paid a taxicab fare nearly as high as her rent, she is not surprised at all when Logan is the first person she sees, sitting down on a bench near the entrance, smoking a cigar. Though his total, utter surprise makes up for her lack of it.

“Kid?” he sputters. “Jesus Christ, why didn’t you tell me you were coming back today, I woulda—”

And she hugs him before he can stand up, before he can start to grin, joke, complain, scold, make plans, tell stories, promise beers—she hugs him with her arms tight around his jacket and says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And below her, she can hear him laugh nervously as he brings his arms around her waist, over her jacket and say, “For what, takin’ off? Hey, you’re back, I’m not mad anymore, no worries.”

And she says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And he asks, “Jesus, what do you have to be so sorry about?”

And she says, “I’m sorry, Logan, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And he says, “Hey, your skin is touching me—did the thing not wear off, or can you control it now?”

And she says, “God, Logan, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And he asks, “Did that streak of yours get bigger?”

And she says, “I’m sorry, Logan. I’m sorry.” And he says, “You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

And she says, “Logan, I’m sorry.” And he says, “I said—”

And she says, “I’m sorry, Logan. I’m sorry.” And he says, “Stop it.”

And she says, “Logan, I’m so sorry.”

And he doesn’t say anything this time, but holds her, already poised to comfort her, until she can feel his body tense when he realizes that he is the one being comforted, that her arms are the ones protecting him, holding him steady, keeping him safe. And when she says again, “Logan, I’m so sorry,” the hands on the back of her jacket tighten.

“Kid,” he says. “Kid,” he says again, and it is a broken, long-unused sound. “Kid,” he says again, and again, and again.


*


In his room, she lies at the foot of his bed while he sits across from her in his armchair and asks again, “Wait, you were the one who killed Magneto in San Francisco?” Logan shakes his head. “I need to hear this story.”

“Later,” she says. “First I want you to tell me about Alcatraz,” and she can hear his entire skeleton humming, and she knows that the sound she hears is both a gasp of pain and a sigh of relief.

“And then,” she adds, turning over to look at him, stretching her bare arm out in front of her so she can see him through the gaps between her fingers, “I’m going to tell you everything I remember about Japan.”

She lowers the hand and looks at him directly. “And if you want to know more—let me touch you, and I’ll tell you more.”

And it is not such a long time before he says, “Okay. Okay.”