Disclaimer: I don't own them. I wouldn't want to own them either. They belong to Marvel.
An Impossibility
by Bounce
She should be sleeping. It will be getting light soon, and it's just gone 5 AM.
She did the impossible, just over a week ago. She thinks wryly that she should be used to that by now. Her husband died a few months ago. She can feel his breath, warm against her neck. She's been to the future. Her own son is decades older than she is. She's stared the end of the world in the face, and laughed, more times than she can count. She should be used to the impossible by now.
She can feel the places in his mind that are cracked and bleeding, like raw, open wounds. He used to laugh. More often than not, the laughter never reached the surface, was never shown except to those who knew him best. He laughs and jokes more, since he came back. But now the laughter is entirely on the outside. He's too badly damaged, too broken, to truly laugh these days.
She wants to reach out and heal the damage Apocalypse did to him. It wouldn't take much at all. Just a brush of thought and energy across his mind. She doesn't. She can't. Not and keep Scott's trust. She refuses to cry and focuses instead on the thoughts and emotions she's picking up from the Professor. He is the most powerful telepath on the planet. She shouldn't be able to hear him like this. That she can is frightening. Impossible.
He's unbelievably happy, because he's own body once more and because he can walk again. She is surprised to see that he is afraid, too, deep down inside. There was a time when she thought that the Professor wasn't afraid of anything. She learnt better, over the years. Afraid of losing his legs a third time, of the consequences of Cassandra's outing him as a mutant. Of the future of his Dream. For the safety of the students here, many of them children barely able to defend themselves.
And all but crippled with guilt. Guilt over how he dealt with Cassandra Nova, the things he's left undone and the words he's said. Over the fates of those who have followed him. Over trying to kill his twin sister before he was even born.
She moves away, uncomfortable, leaves him to walk the mansion's hallways on his own. He never even noticed she was there.
Emma is awake, huddled into a ball in the center of the bed, limbs shining like diamonds in the half-light of the lamp. She cries silently, shaking with emotion. She is alone, and able to let the White Queen, that ruthless, icy front she shows to the world fall and grieve for the deaths she'd felt echoing in her mind as Genosha died.
She leaves Emma to her grief, and moves on, unwilling to disturb her.
Barnell tosses restlessly, trying not to think about what Cassandra Nova had made him do to Hank. He doesn't care that he was forced to do it. He was the one who beat Hank nearly to death. Who was covered in the other man's blood.
Xorn's thoughts are alien to her, a blinding light encased in an iron cage. And too dangerous for her to touch, even now, when she is more powerful than she has ever been. She can feel the Phoenix moving restlessly in the back of her mind.
She ignores it. Ignores the thoughts of sleepers scattered throughout the mansion. There isn't a one of them who isn't hurting, damaged in some way or another. She's lost count of the number of sleepless nights she's spent like this, trying to ignore the thoughts and nightmares of her friends. She trained herself, years ago, to ignore it all. To ignore the pain they felt. To ignore the places in her own mind that are beginning to crack, to split and to bleed.
It's harder tonight than it normally is, because she did the impossible a week ago. She split Xavier's mind into a thousand, thousand pieces, and stuck them back together again. She shouldn't have been able to do that. She did. She should be used to doing the impossible by now.
Jean cries and tries to ignore the feel of a dead man's breath on her skin.