Resonance

by Indigo

Paige Guthrie stood alone in the rain. Water soaked her long blonde hair; it ran down her face, mingling with the tears she only dared show now that she was alone.

Alone with the simple granite headstone memorial which read:

Her thoughts roiled uneasily through her head as she trudged back to the house through the mud. The rain had come suddenly. She had been on the plane, marvelling at the rays of sunlight through the clouds...but by the time the plane had landed, it had been a deluge. She had already known before landing that Jono was gone; the rain had only made her feel worse.

Paige had arrived too late to see him; too late to say goodbye. Worse, she'd *known* she was too late; Jono had come to her instead. She'd felt him in her mind -- a warm breath of a kiss touching her soul. Words without sounds, she'd felt the music of his soul. He'd bid her goodbye and told her finally of his love for her. And then -- nothing. An echo of emptiness leaving her alone in her thoughts, and an answering emptiness in her heart. A pain she wasn't sure she'd entirely recover from.

There was nothing left in the chamber when she had arrived. Ms. Frost and Everett were sitting there beside it, holding hands, and looking for all the world like they were unsure they should truly be grieving at Jono's passing. Paige had gone into a sort of shock when Monet and Angelo had taken her aside later and told her what had destroyed Chamber.

Monet had finally been the one to say it -- bluntly and brusquely, because Angelo had been too full of grief and guilt to allow himself to say it. "As near as we can tell, it was a heroin overdose, Paige. Angelo found him and sent me for help at once. But it was already too late. There was nothing we could do. Nothing anyone could do. He burned himself out -- like a dying ember."

Uncharacteristically, Monet St. Croix's eyes had grown shiny, wet. Paige had had to catch her breath at the gratitude in M's voice when she had almost reverently concluded, "But his dying act was to give back what was taken from Emma. From me. From so many of us."

So it was that Monet had led Paige to speak with Everett and Emma -- who had been there -- in all the senses of the words -- when Jono had winked out. They had been able to describe the moment of Jono's death better than anyone. For Monet to admit anyone was better than she at anything was no small thing. Paige had gone to listen to the two of them with that in mind, part of her still amazed at the change in the usually haughty Algerian.

To her continuing astonishment, the change extended beyond Monet. Everyone in the house was touched, different somehow. There was something different in the whole dynamic of the group; less tension...perhaps more understanding. Paige was uncertain she could put her finger on it; she was uncertain it was more than intuition -- vibes, for want of a better phrase.

The others seemed to sense it, and offered what they could to comfort her. Even Jubilee had wordlessly rushed up, a black armband on her lurid yellow rainslicker, and hugged Paige tightly until she was breathless.

Leech and Artie had also hugged her around the waist, and offered her the best brave little smiles their mutated faces could muster. But the most profound change and most shocking revelation awaited her in the infirmary -- with Everett and Emma.

"I know it must be terrible for you," Everett had said with his customary empathy. "I know he wanted to see you one more time. I felt it, along with so many other things. But believe me, Paige -- when Jono went away, he was at peace. And he was glad that his end was mending a tear in the astral plane, and helping so many."

~A tear in the astral plane?~ Paige echoed to herself. ~It sounds like he just slapped a piece of Scotch Tape over a rip in a piece of paper.~ Absently, she found her eyes perusing the room. The silver chamber in which Jono had spent his final hours was shiny on the outside, but the hard fiberglass viewing panel was occluded -- presumably from the heat of Jono's internal furnace. She ran her fingers along the inside of the containment unit; they came away blackened with soot. At the bottom of the container where Jono had lain were ashes -- all that remained of the clothes and bandages he had worn.

Paige swallowed a sob as memories of Jubilee joking about roasting marshmallows over Jono's chest came back to her, unbidden.

Although the pain of his loss was nearly crippling to her, Paige found herself guiltily glad she had not seen Jono's final moments, if his last resting place looked like this. She had to force herself to concentrate on Everett's voice, or the yawning chasm of her grief was going to suck her down again.

Emma Frost had nodded along with Everett's words. To Paige, it seemed that the woman was no longer bound and determined to live up to her name. The icy edges she used to keep the world at bay had melted to something softer, smoother -- easier to approach.

"He hadn't intended it to happen like it had," the White Queen explained with an almost maternal air about her. "We failed him, I'm sorry to say." The pain in her topaz blue eyes was almost palpable. "I was selfishly absorbed in my own misery, my own sense of loss when my telepathy was gone. I didn't try to reach him as I should have. We took too much for granted." For a moment, as Emma immersed herself in self-recrimination, the icy Frost was back. But she was gone again in a twinkling. "Angelo did his best, but we reckoned without the depth of Jonothon's pain."

"Ah," Paige began, but Emma silenced her with a gentle touch of a finger to her lips.

"Don't say it, Paige. He knew you had to go home to your mother, and he didn't hold it against you."

~But ah hold it against me,~ Paige thought, then Emma was embracing her, stroking her hair, and rocking her gently.

"He knows how you felt," Everett assured Paige, and leaned in to add his own warmth to the embrace.

Paige was too stunned to pull away, so they had held her for a long moment.

The first night had been hard for her. She had been unable to sleep. It was too late to call her mother. And she just couldn't bring herself to wake the others. Jubilee had not spoken a word that Paige knew of since Jono's death...if death was the right word. Angelo had blamed himself, and spent hours in the gym practicing arcane and unusual permutations of his mutant ability, swearing he would never fail a friend again. His fingers snaked to unusual lengths, then he would repeat the process with his toes.

It was almost sleepwalking that had led Paige down to the basement Jono had called home. She had remembered waking up, and wrapping her arms around herself in the dark. She had remembered the rain pattering against the window, which had in turn made her remember how Jono had watched the rain. But she simply could not recall padding barefoot from her own bedroom to the basement.

The room had been left almost entirely untouched -- there was an air of respect surrounding it. The only two things that had been disturbed were Jono's guitar and the leather jacket he had always worn; they had been placed together on his bed, atop the rumpled black sheets. Paige curled up on the bed with Jono's two most beloved possessions -- and finally sleep had come to her.

In the morning, when she woke -- warm with Jono's leather jacket wound around her, Paige's eyes fell on the spoon and the vial. ~They ain't come down here to clean yet,~ Paige realized distantly. She slid from the bed, still barefoot, and gazed around the basement. It was dark. Musty. Mildewed. Cold. Dusty. It was hard to breathe now that she was awake, and sunlight was slanting down the stairs from the door she had left open the previous night.

Methodically, she began to clean. First, the crumpled newspapers and guitar magazines got stacked and taken up to the kitchen for the recycling. Then, returning downstairs with broom and vacuum in tow, she tackled the floor and the battered old couch. The house woke above her, and the sounds of the others filtered down to her -- but Paige was not of a mind to mingle. Replacing the comfort of his jacket was an anger. That anger focused like a ray of sunlight in a magnifying glass, and burst into full flame when she swept the vial toward the dustpan.

"Damn," Paige whispered. Then continued, "Damn." And before she realized it, she was standing in the middle of the floor, fists balled, muttering, "Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!" over and over again.

When she finally came back to herself, she resumed cleaning, but the anger roiled at the back of her mind, seeping into her thoughts and tainting them with her rage. ~Damn it, Jono, you *promised* you'd wait for me. You promised you'd practice with your powers. You promised you'd be okay...!~ Her thoughts flew backward to their goodbye in the diner. He had been practicing. ~How could you be so *selfish*? Don't you know what your death *did* to -- ~

And she stopped, cold.

What his death had done was to give Monet and Emma -- and *every other telepath on the planet* their ability back. It had touched minds and souls and brought peace and comfort -- to others, and to hear Everett tell it -- to Jono himself.

~What right do ah have to be angry with him? He was hurtin' and there was nobody here who understood. Nobody here to comfort him. Ah had to go home and be with Mama...~ Tears welled in Paige's blue eyes and she whisked a hand across her eyes, brusquely. ~Ah didn't know he was gonna sink that low! Oh, Jono -- I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry...~

She pelted up the stairs, two at a time, and headed for the shower. She needed to talk to Angelo.

***

"Ange?" she asked, tapping on his half-open door.

"Si?" the barrio-born, grey-skinned boy asked flatly without opening the door.

"Tell me what all happened," Paige asked. "Ah... ah need t' know." She was so concerned her accent had crept back into her voice.

"What happened?" Angelo repeated, finally opening the door with a sweeping motion of an elongated foot. His hands were hanging limp at his sides -- inexpertly bandaged in ragged strips of gauze; blossomed here and there with blood.

"What happened is he conned Monet into takin' him into town. ‘Stupido gave her the slip, bought some smack, shot it up, an' now he's dead. *That's* what happened." He whirled on a bare heel, taking two long strides to his bed, and sat with his head in his hands.

"An' you are blamin' yourself," Paige added, sitting beside him unbidden.

"Si," Angelo answered in a whisper, meeting her eyes for the seconds it took to breathe that painful affirmation. Then his gaze dropped to the floor again.

"It wasn't your fault," Paige murmured, taking his hand.

"Whose was it, then, huh?" Angelo exploded, one long-fingered hand flying out in an abrupt gesture. "Sean told *me* to be the one who looked out for him, made sure he wasn't sinkin' deeper. An' I couldn't even do that."

Paige shook her head and turned Angelo's face so she could look him in the eye. "You did the best you could. You're no telepath, and even if you were, you had no idea what this would have done to him." She reached out and embraced him tightly. "Ah'm sure he doesn't blame you for not stoppin' him, Angelo."

Angelo was silent, tense and motionless for an instant before finally reaching his skinny grey arms around to return Paige's hug. His slim body shook with soundless sobs for a long moment before he tried to speak again. "How can you say that?" he asked in a quavering voice.

"Look at how the people in this house are," Paige pointed out. "Emma an' Everett. They're actin' like it wasn't so much a death knell as it was a transitional chord. Like he went on somewhere better. Somewhere havin' no face wouldn't matter. An' he cared enough to tell us all goodbye. Even me. Do you honestly think he would've done that if he was still all full of anger an' pain, Angelo?"

Angelo met Paige's eyes for a moment, watching her. He was silent a long moment before he spoke again; and when he did, his voice was timbred with bitterness and not a little anger.

"He ain' tell *me* hasta la vista, Country Mouse," Angelo murmured. "I din' get no psychic voice in my head tellin' me he didn't hold it against me that I was too slow to help him." Her friend's face looked haunted.

Paige looked down; Angelo was wringing his hands unconsciously -- pulling on the bandages. He swore softly under his breath in barrio Spanish, then showed her his hands. "Mira. !Mira! He locked his fuckin' *door* so I *couldn't* get in to help him. I ripped my hands up to get in so I could pick him up, feel him burnin', an' ... an'...." Angelo's voice choked, caught, and stopped. He turned sharply away from Paige and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Oh, Ange," Paige whispered, stroking his face gently. She got up and picked up the roll of gauze from the dresser where he'd left it, along with the surgical tape, Neosporin, and scissors. "He was hurtin', an' now you're hurtin' for not helpin' him. If you'd been any slower, he might not have had a chance to say his goodbyes at all."

Angelo fixed her with dubious grey eyes, but permitted her to gently clean and rebandage his torn and shredded fingers. "You really think that, don't you, Country Mouse?" He blinked twice, hard, then shrugged a shoulder hard to brush away a tear that escaped down his cheek.

"Ah can try'n prove it," Paige declared, rising to her feet and offering Angelo her hand. "Come with me."

She bounded downstairs, blonde hair flying like a pennant - a streamer of that sunshine Jono had always called her to show his affection. Angelo followed uncertainly, until they had reached the infirmary.

Without preamble, Paige reached up, caught the tips of her fingernails in the skin of her face and tore it free, revealing a blue-silver skin of metal beneath it. "Don't know if this is gonna work for sure," she murmured, and the room seemed filled with echoes of her voice; some high and breathy, some low and murmured.

She continued to peel away the husk of her human appearance, revealing more of the shining metal flesh. "Vibranium," she explained, carefully lowering her voice in compensation for the echo effect. "It picks up vibrations an' magnifies ‘em. Nobody's tried psionic vibrations before, but , if anyone would've left ‘em, Jono would've."

Angelo was silent, arms folded across his narrow chest. The huge gold crucifix he customarily wore rose and fell with his breaths. "Chica, you are losin' it. Ain' no way no vibrations are gonna still be hangin' around here." But in his thoughts, he was almost reverent in his amazement. ~Madonna, she's beautiful like this. An' she's doin' this for me -- to prove to me Jono din' just blow me off at the end 'cause I wasn't there for him? Dios...~

But Paige was not listening to Angelo anymore. Her vibranium body - perhaps because she was organic due to the peculiar mechanism of her power - was picking up just what she'd hoped. Psychic resonances, left by Jono, were vibrating through her body, into her mind - and out again as a musical hum that began softly but grew louder with each second.

Angelo's jaw dropped and his eyes widened. "Madre de Dios," he gasped, and leaned forward to touch her bare shoulder. He gasped, caught in the reverberation. "Hombre," ~It is him. It's Jono. I don' know how she knew, but she knew. He's here...almost.~

***

Upstairs, Jubilee heard the musical hum through the headphones of her Walkman. She followed it, curious, until she found its source. Even with Angelo in the room, touching Paige, the song was gaining strength rather than weakening. She reached a hand forward and took Angelo's free hand. Then her eyes too widened.

***

[~Thought someone'd try this, gel,~] It was like a recording, almost. [~Sorry I failed you, luv. I didn't mean to, really. I just wanted to escape from the pain and solitude. I couldn't handle my music. Couldn't communicate except by mundane bloody paper. Couldn't tell you.~]

His face was not really there, except as a faint impression between the psionic "notes" of the "song" he'd left behind as a psychommetric imprint.

[~Tell Jubes I'm sorry we never got to form a band, right?~]

[~Tell Ange I know he did his best. But it's okay, I can feel it getting better even as my body gives up the ghost.~]

Angelo's tears battered through what meager defense he had left, and streamed down his face. ~Gracias, amigo mio.~

[~Tell Penny I know she'll be all right.~]

[~Tell Cassidy he was an all right bloke even if I didn't tell him so when I had the chance.~ ]

[~An' this,Paige, sunshine, my love - is for you.~ ]

Paige blinked, and the faint image of Jono was gone, leaving behind a song that touched her vibranium body and then rang into the air. When she focused on the room again, the others had gathered into a loose circle around her, all standing with their eyes closed.

Jubilee's face was streaked with tears.

Angelo found her eyes and murmured, "Gracias, almost inaudibly. Then his bandaged fingers lifted to stroke her face gently. "Gracias," he repeated. Then, glancing skyward, "Adios, Jono."

"Goodbye, Jonothon," Leech murmured. Beside him, Artie generated an image of Jono surrounded by hearts. "Leech and Artie will miss you."

The song hung in the air for nearly an hour. When it was done, Paige Guthrie knelt, weak, in the center of the infirmary. Angelo sat beside her, holding vigil since he had been unable to do so for Jono.

She was slow to tear away the vibranium skin - to part from Jono's swan song. But it was fading on its own. It would take a true psychommetric to hold on to it any longer, and Paige was exhausted.

When she finally looked up, after the arduous process of restoring her natural flesh, Angelo knelt beside her. "He left a little of himself behind," marvelled Skin. "It's like he's watchin' over us."

"Yeah, Paige agreed, as he lifted her into his arms. "His death wasn't as meaningless or empty as we'd feared."

She fell asleep, then, contented. Angelo carried her down to Jono's room, covered her with his tattered blanket, then kissed her forehead.

As he ascended the stairs to his own room, he found that the weight of grief had been lessened from his heart. ~Leave it to Jono, man,~ he thought, amazed. ~To sing one final note that will hang in our hearts.~

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