Fade To Black

by Alicia McKenzie

I'm dying. I've died before, so the feeling's familiar.

Deja vu. It was her fault then, too.

Of course, this isn't my Jean. Not my template, my perfect sister. This Jean is almost a kindred spirit. We would have gotten along, if we'd had the chance. If she hadn't decided she had to kill me, so that she could take my place.

I'm fading. I can feel it.

She's not just killing me. She's wiping out my existence. I listen as she tells her lies to Nate. She's laughing. Claiming that she was always me, that I never existed except as her disguise.

Lies. I was real. I know I was real. I hated, I loved, I felt pain.

I think, therefore I am. Aren't I?

Damn her. And damn him too, for bringing me back to life and then letting her kill me like this. He owed me more than this. I thought he felt a responsibility to me. I thought he cared.

Why didn't he save me?

Why doesn't anyone ever save me?

I wasn't finished yet. I wasn't ready to let go.

I hate you for this, Nate Grey.

You can have him, Jean.

***

Still here. Except that I don't know where here is. This can't be it. Can't be death. Death is dark, and here, there's light, faint and reddish--

Firelight. Soft firelight. Not the Phoenix.

Why did I expect it to be waiting for me?

I push back the weariness and concentrate on the firelight. A floor, ceiling, four walls take shape around me. Familiar walls. I know this place. It's the cabin, in Alaska.

Alaska. I was happy here. We were. Scott and Nathan and I. We were a family.

Once upon a time. Before--

I push the hate away. I'm so tired of hating. Scott's dead now, anyway. Apocalypse took him. And Nathan's--

Here. Sitting on the couch Scott and I bought in Anchorage. Staring into the fire.

"Hello," my son says hoarsely.

This isn't real. It's the astral plane. I know that.

But he's here. And I'm here.

"Hello," I whisper.

What to say. I could have brought him out of Akkaba with me, across the astral plane. Whether he wanted me to or not, I could have saved him. At least spared him seeing Scott throw his life away. I'd visited his dreams often enough these last few months that I knew how it haunted him.

I left him there because my feelings were hurt. Because he'd chosen Scott over me. His mission over me.

But Nathan put his mission over everything. I knew that. He'd lived for it, sacrificed everything for it. It had taken everything from him.

And I had abandoned him in a fit of pique.

I hadn't been fair.

But then I never was, was I? Not to him. And he never deserved it.

"You're dying," he says softly.

"I thought I wasn't alive?"

He doesn't answer. I see--

Tears. Trickling down his cheeks. Astral manifestation of sadness.

Maybe it won't be so bad, if someone remembers me. Grieves for me.

Nathan looks up at me with lost eyes, and I spare a thought for Jean--my Jean, tearing herself apart in grief over Scott. Selfish grief. Don't you leave him, Jean. Don't you dare leave him alone.

"I'm not strong enough," he says, helpless self-loathing in his voice. "I can't save you."

"I know." His strength isn't that sort of strength. It makes him different from Nate. Makes him better.

I wish he could see that.

Hate in his eyes suddenly, amid the confusion and grief. "He could, but he's not listening."

He. So much anger in the word. Nathan will hate Nate for this, I know.

That shouldn't be such a satisfying thought.

I laugh, bitterly. "Why should he? He thinks I was never here."

Out of the chair and across the room, and he's holding me close, his arms feeling so real around me. "You were," he whispers. "You'll always be here."

I wish I could cry. I wish--

"Mother." One word, such a gift.

And I'm crying. I'm crying tears of joy.

Out on a high note.

I was real. So long as he remembers me, I was real.

I am Madelyne Pryor, and I'm not afraid. Not anymore.

I let go, let myself fade, until all that's left is love.

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