Sinatra Night At The World's End

by Alicia McKenzie

FRANKLIN

The air's different tonight. Usually when I notice an atmospheric change, it means that the shifts are building outside the shields and a reality storm's on its way. But this isn't a change like that. It's a good change, not one that makes me wary and watchful and keeps me up all night just in case something breaches the shield wall.

It's in the air, but not of the air. My own pompous phrasing makes me chuckle, and I go back to watching the Forges fussing over the CD player. Nate brought it in today. I don't where he found it, I haven't heard that part of the story yet.

The odd thing is, he was almost calm when he and Dom got back. Oh, he'd picked up plenty of shift residue in three weeks out, but he wasn't manifesting any of the usual symptoms. No ranting in Askani, no delusions, no sign of any violent temper tantrums in the offing. As far I can tell, we owe this miracle to the CD player.

Well, it and the case of Sinatra CDs he found with it. Can't forgot those.

Music has charms to soothe the savage beast and the unbalanced Askani'son, I guess. Not that we've actually heard any of it yet. The player itself isn't badly damaged, but the Forges are still working on it. Nate hovered for a while - I'm not sure he trusts them with it, he had a definite 'MINE!' thing going on with the backpack he'd carried it and the CDs in - but Dom finally lured him back to the table and poured a couple of drinks down his throat. He's still quivering with impatience, though, and if you've never seen Nate acting like a two-year-old on Christmas morning, it's a revelation.

I don't want to see his face if they can't get it working, though. I--

Static crackled from the speakers, and it was as if someone had just stood up and shouted at everyone to be quiet. The whole bar - and most of the Oasis was crowded in here, waiting - fell into this delicious anticipatory silence. There was no sense of foreboding to it. So refreshing, really.

Nate jumped up out of his chair and dashed over, and I couldn't help grinning as the Forges stepped adroitly out of the way to escape being trampled.

The look on Nate's face--I don't think I've ever sensed this much pure happiness from him. It's him, of course, who's affecting the atmosphere. With how carefully he shields himself, I sometimes forget just how powerful a telepath he is. Nate, despite being a cantankerous son of a bitch most of the time, is remarkably considerate. He makes a point of not letting himself leak at people most of the time.

He's clearly making an exception, tonight. I wonder if he knows he's doing it, broadcasting joy like this. I'm certainly not going to tell him. He might stop.

"Any requests?" Nate called back over his shoulder, smiling almost sheepishly. I could sense the little ripple of bemusement winding its way through his general delight. He'll probably be ten times as cynical and nasty and bad-tempered for the next week to make up for his lapse tonight. But I was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

"You pick one you like, Nate," I answer, still grinning.

"Oh, they're all good," he murmurs happily, flipping through the CD case. After a minute, he pulls one out, puts it in the player, and hits a button. The speakers crackle again, and the music starts, that rich, warm voice I can barely remember.

I really had forgotten what it was like. We do have music here--actually, we have a frightening number of amateur musicians, and one former member of the Philadelphia Symphony who somehow managed to hold onto her violin through everything, but there's a difference between that and this. One is our music, the music of our life here.

This is the music of a dead world, and listening to it is a wistful, wonderful experience. I see a few tears on the faces around me. Only to be expected, I guess. But this song--it's making me think.

When I hear lonely singers
Who are just as lost as me
Making noise, not melody
You will be my music
You will be my song

Kitty's too busy smiling at Nate to notice me watching her. I wonder what she'd do if she happened to look my way. Blush? She still does that sometimes, when she forgets that she's supposed to be the Tough One. But that would probably be too much to hope for. Most likely, she'd just give me that stern look, the one that I'm supposed to take as a reminder of the difference in our ages and all the reasons why it wouldn't work between us.

One of these days I'll convince her that she's wrong. I know what's behind her reluctance, all the things that go into making that tangled ball of fear and regret and guilt that she keeps hidden so very well.

I do, after all, know what she's thinking.

I think that makes her uncomfortable, too.

Ah, well. Patience is a virtue. Maybe we don't have all the time in the world. But I guess I'm still an optimist at heart, because I believe that we'll have enough.

I smile at her, while she's still looking away. I wish she could see herself as I see her.

***

KITTY

I'm not enjoying this as much as I was. The initial rapture's wearing off, I suppose. It probably has something to do with Nate's choice of songs. I never knew that so much of what Sinatra sang was so melancholy. It's not the image I have of the man, or his music.

I hate making discoveries like that. Haven't I had my illusions shattered enough for one lifetime?

This is the third song in a row about lost loves and lost chances. I'm starting to actually feel depressed. Much more of this and I'll be sniveling into my quasi-Scotch.

I scrunch down into my chair, cross my arms across my chest, and try to be unobtrusive. I hardly need to worry. Everyone's still wrapped up in the music, getting increasingly mopey. Someone really needs to wrestle Nate away from the CD player and put on something more sprightly. What happened to songs like 'My Way', or 'Fly Me To The Moon'?

This song in particular's really getting to me. It makes me think of him--of Pete.

Sad, when one stupid song can make me backslide. I work very hard at not thinking of him. I delude myself into thinking that I'm really very good at separating 'what-went-before' and 'what-is-now'. I can focus on life here, fill up my days with doing laundry and cooking and looking after the kids and working in the garden and everything else. There's always something to do, someone who needs me.

I keep busy. It's a cliche, but it's true. I just wish that so many of the things that need doing took more concentration. Mental, as well as physical effort.

There's nothing worse than having too much time alone with your thoughts.

It really is funny. Filling up my days is easy. I just can't seem to fill up my heart with much of anything. It's been empty ever since he died, and--I'm not sure I don't prefer it that way. At least that means I haven't forgotten him.

Pete would be so angry at me, for thinking that. I know that, but knowing it doesn't change things. He's not here, and I have to deal with how that makes me feel, even all this time later.

I wonder sometimes what he would have thought of the Oasis. How he would have fit in here--because he would have, I know. Pete was very good at making the best of what he had. The fact that he died doesn't make him any less of a survivor.

I really don't like this song. It encourages you to be maudlin, and this world doesn't have any patience for maudlin people. You have to be a survivor. You can't let your defenses down too far, not even in the Oasis. It's too easy to lose what little you have left.

It's a good philosophy. A sensible philosophy.

And sometimes it seems so empty that it makes me want to cry.

Franklin's watching me again. I wish he wouldn't do that. He's so mild most of the time. Calm and cheerful and easygoing. Meeting his eyes and seeing that wicked, challenging 'I dare you' look is unsettling. I sometimes think he's wondering what I'd do if he kissed me. Whether I'd hit him or not.

Maybe I would. Or maybe I'd kiss him back.

It's the not knowing that scares me.

***

LORNA

I don't really want to be here. The bar's too crowded. Too many people, all too emotional--even if it isn't in a really obvious way. I don't know why I'm here. I'm not comfortable. I feel like they want me to take part, somehow, to share in what they're feeling, and I don't like that.

I should be used to it. Someone always wants something from me. At least this is fairly innocuous. Most of the time, it's a lot more serious. No one ever says it aloud, but I know that I disappoint them. I'm one of the Twelve, and I'm not living up to that.

I don't have the excuse of being a child, like Mikhail. I'm an adult. I'm healthy. Physically strong. To them, I should be like Nathan or Bishop, willing to march back out into the chaos to salvage supplies, rescue people, and help find the other members of the Twelve.

I hate them for thinking that, sometimes. It's been a very long, long time since I was a hero.

I'm not a Sinatra fan. I don't think I ever was, although I really don't remember clearly what sort of music I used to like. Things go--hazy, when you let them. Some things. Others stay clear and vivid, no matter what you do to try and forget forget.

Why am I able to remember so clearly Alex's face as he told me to run, the night the Marauders attacked our cabin, but can't remember where we went on our first date?

Maybe it's not so bad that I've lost so many of the good bits and pieces of my past. I have less to mourn.

Dreams. Another subject I don't like to think much about. My dreams are always so strange. I see the people I knew, but they're different, sometimes so different I can barely recognize them. I see strangers, too, and places that I've never been, however familiar they seem.

I'm almost sure that some of them aren't really my dreams. I listen, when the others talk. I've heard Franklin say things about 'psychic blurring' in members of the Twelve.

It doesn't bother me very much. Madness doesn't scare me. You're not a part of this world if you're not at least a little mad.

I know why I don't like this song. It makes too much sense.

***

BISHOP

Since I came here, I've tried to keep to myself. Habit, I suppose. I was alone in the shifts for a long time, and my way of dealing with the shift-madness was to stay alone, so that I didn't endanger anyone else in my irrational moments. I became used to it.

I've made few real connections here. I fulfill my obligations to the community, to Franklin, to the greater cause of reassembling the Twelve and seeking an end to the shifts. Duty is something I know very intimately.

It's beginning to seem like a very empty existence. Perhaps I'm being foolish, wanting something more. Our life here is so tenuous, hanging as it does on the life of a single man. I imagine Franklin's death, sometimes, picturing the effect it would have. The Oasis would disintegrate. Cable and I could perhaps keep our people alive for a time, but what would happen when we went mad, and Franklin wasn't there to restore us? It would only be a matter of time.

Reaching out to fill some vague, emotional need would be foolish. One must focus on the practical things, when catastrophe is always lurking just beyond the next bend in the road.

But I find I am--not enjoying this, not quite. But it feels good to sit here, listening to this music, watching the people around me relax and enjoy themselves. I am almost content.

I see her lurking at the edge of the crowd, as she so often does. Lorna Dane, the ghost of the Oasis. Kitty and Franklin expend a great deal of time and effort in their attempts to draw her out of her shell, but Lorna resists. I wonder what her reasons are, whether they're anything like mine.

I wonder. And I wonder why she draws me as she does. Why seeing her makes me think dangerous thoughts, thoughts about emerging from my own shell, just a little, and reaching out to her.

It's a foolish urge, really. I never knew the Lorna Dane of my world. She died at the hands the Shadow King on Muir Island, before I even came to the past. So I have no conflicting memories of her, no reason to scorn her for her 'weakness' as Cable does.

He can be very cruel at times.

I watch her, as I often do, and continue to wonder at myself. I'm sure the others would think I've conceived some sort of unhealthy obsession for her, if they knew my thoughts. But it isn't that. It's not an attraction. If I were planning to proposition any of the women here, Domino would be far more my 'type'. If she were unattached, of course.

Lorna's different. She strikes me as a symbol, a very powerful symbol. This pale, withdrawn shadow of a woman seems like the very embodiment of our future. The average inhabitant of the Oasis may live aggressively in the moment, but ask them about tomorrow, or a year from now, and the look in their eyes becomes very much like the look in Lorna's.

They're afraid to hope. I'm afraid to hope.

Maybe that's why I'm drawn to Lorna. 'Rescuing' her would be like rescuing myself. If I can help her live again, it would be like redeeming hope. Maybe that's my motivation, beneath it all.

Or maybe it's just a desire to see her smile. I don't know. Very perplexing, really.

***

DOMINO

Eventually, I had to tell Nate that I was going to take the CDs away from him if he didn't stop choosing such mournful songs. I felt like a bit of an ogre, given how spaced-out and blissful he's been ever since the music started, but people were beginning to sniffle. It was getting on my nerves.

The last couple of songs have been much better. 'Come Fly With Me', 'Embraceable You', 'Anything Goes'. Although Nate looked positively morose while 'The Coffee Song' was playing. Nostalgia's a bitch sometimes. Other times, it's a blessing.

There's a surreal edge to all of this. I don't think I've ever felt our psi-link so--light. There's no other way to put it. Usually, there's this edge, this dark undercurrent, even when we're relaxed. I've stopped trying to figure out which of us causes it; I think it's a mutual thing.

But everything's different, tonight.

I wonder if all Nathans have the same reaction to Sinatra music. I suppose that's impossible. Something so ephemeral as taste in music can't be universal across the dimensions. I'm sure there are worlds where Frank Sinatra was never born--

And I need to stop trying to analyze this. It's like looking a gift horse in the mouth. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts?

There are times I really need to put a leash on my mind. It wanders into the damnedest places, at the most inappropriate times.

Right now, I should be basking. Nate's end of the link is glowing gold, bright as the sun, and the happiness he's emanating all over the bar feels like warm sunlight. Everyone's feeling it. All the wistfulness, all the tears are gone. All I see are faces wreathed in smiles. Even Lorna looks like she's beginning to relax, which is a miracle in and of itself.

Oh, I like this song. It tickles me. Nate looks over at me almost inquisitively, and I grin right back at him, trying to push that feeling down the link, to show him. The link somehow manages to glow a little brighter, and he winks at me.

He picked this one deliberately, the sneaky bastard. That much I can sense. He probably thinks it suits me. Well, it does, but frankly, I think it suits him just as well.

We dance. We've always danced. If I had to pick a way to describe our relationship, that would be it. One hell of a whacked-out, perverse, frustrating, satisfying dance. Sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's fast. Aggressive, content, standoffish, close, competitive, cooperative. We give each other conflicting signals, step on each other's toes more often than we like to admit.

But just as often, we move as one. And I wouldn't trade it for the world.

***

NATHAN

She's over there, grinning at me. Daring me to do something--I'm not sure what, but I know that look.

This is shaping up into quite the night. I don't know what made me stop and look in the ruins of that house, but I'm glad I did. To think of all this going to waste, half-buried beneath a collapsed wall.

Luck. Pure luck. There are times when traveling with her has some very surprising fringe benefits.

I've getting very definite 'isn't he cute?' vibes from far too many directions. Ordinarily, I'd take that as a signal to growl at someone, just to restore my reputation. Can't have anyone thinking I've mellowed, after all.

Well, maybe I have. Just a little. A temporary thing, of course. Sinatra's always done that to me.

The fact that there are songs on some of these CDs that I've never heard of is just an added bonus. I'm going to listen to all of them, of course. Probably several times. But I think something classic's in order right now.

Something to dance to.

I let 'I Like to Lead When I Dance' finish and then pop that CD out, replacing it with another as I scrutinize the back of the case. Track number-- three. Yeah, that one'll do.

The low, content murmur that moves around the room as the song starts reassures me that this song was a classic in a lot of worlds. That's good. Restores my faith in the essential rightness of the universe.

Grinning, I go over and pull Dom to her feet. She yelps and gives me one of those 'You'll regret this' glares. It seems more than a little half-hearted.

"What are you doing, oaf?" she grumbles as I pull her out into the empty space on the floor. Given that most of the population of the Oasis is crowded in here, it's a surprise that there's enough room for any sort of a dance floor, but it sort of happened anyway.

I give her as dazzling a smile as I can muster. "Getting you to dance with me, o light of my life," I reply, gallantly. "What does it look like?"

Her cheeks color, just a little, but she slides her arms around me anyway. "Liked my metaphor, did you?" she asked, staring up at me with an arched eyebrow as we sway softly to the music.

"Mmm. You've thought up worse." I pull her closer, just because I want to. I like this song. It says all the things I can never quite swallow my pride or my wariness enough to say.

"You are the most appallingly sentimental idiot at times, you know that," she murmurs, and leans her head against my chest.

"Multiple personalities." Her hair smells nice.

"Right." She pokes me lightly in the ribs, just enough to make me jump. "Nice excuse."

"Not really an excuse." I don't mean that I really do have multiple personalities, just that it feels like that sometimes. I feel sometimes like I've gone through too many drastic changes. I'm all but completely disconnected from the person I was in my future, the person I was before Domino and X-Force died in my world, the person I was before the shifts. All that binds all those different Nathan Daysprings to me is memory, and that's a fragile thread, at best.

Sensing something of this, Dom just hugs me tighter. We're dancing so close now that we're probably scandalizing the few prim members of our audience.

"Don't start brooding on me now, babe," she says softly. "You were doing so well."

I smile, close my eyes, and breathe in the scent of her, just reveling in the joy of having her in my arms and my mind and my heart. What is, is, and what is, at the moment, is pretty special, I think.

Moments like this are more than enough incentive to keep going. They make it all worthwhile.

***

MIKHAIL

I'm supposed to be in bed. Kitty tucked me in before she left, and told me to go to sleep. But I couldn't. I could hear the music, all the way from the house, so I snuck out to come and see.

I've been watching for a while, and there are a lot more people dancing now than there were. It's kind of nice to see people so happy. I don't know who the singer is - and it's the same singer in every song - but they all seem to like him.

I wonder where Avalon is? I'll have to ask Kitty tomorrow. She and Franklin are dancing. That's good. She's making a face, but it's the sort of face that means she's trying not to smile, and Franklin's very happy. I can tell.

Bishop's over talking to Lorna. That's kind of strange. She's not trying to back away, either. She looks almost curious, and Bishop is smiling. Now, there's something you don't see very often. Over by the bar, Patrick's trying to get Ilsa to come dance with him--they really are so funny.

Nathan and Domino are dancing, too. It's easy to see them, even in the crowd, because Nathan is so much taller than most people. He scares me sometimes, but he's not really scared at the moment. He's holding Domino really close, and she's leaning against him, smiling. Their eyes are closed, and it's like they're the only people in the room.

I think I'll stay and watch until someone finds out I'm here when I should be sleeping.

I wonder how long they'll all keep dancing.

I dream of her and Avalon
From dusk 'til dawn;
So I think I'll travel on
Way on to Avalon...

fin

[FOOTER]