Under a blood red sky

by Lise

He says to me, panicky, "Are y'dead yet?"

I seriously consider his question, because it's quite possible that I've died and didn't notice. The improbable has become ever more probable of late. I wiggle my toes slowly, open my eyes -- both signs of life. I grimace, then shake my head. "Nope."

I don't really have anything else to say. He sits back on his haunches, and looks at me with the definite threat of Pain in his eyes, should I ever do something like this again, even though I'm not entirely sure what This is. Guess I was still for too long. Red-blackness scowls at me, and I gaze at him fondly in the pale, watery light staring down from the dual moons above us.

It's warm enough that I'm not wearing anything. Neither is he, and beside us, his daughter sleeps like the dead, Ororo wrapped around her protectively. We each take turns guarding her -- his idea. He wants to know that, should we ever get separated, someone's going to stay with his baby.

Correction: with their baby. Not that I'm jealous -- he'll always love Jean, and he doesn't really love me. I'm a telepath, so I know these things. I'm not sure if he knows I read him, or whether he'd be angry if he did suspect. It doesn't really matter, does it? He needs me to know what to say, and sometimes, even to say it.

He continues to look at me, and I feel the fear in his mind, cagey and fleeting and trying to escape my mental probe. He's hunched over, as if even sitting up at night might invite the nightmares back. I lay still, waiting for him to curl against me again.

I know he will, and not because I read his mind. I know because he needs to, and I need him to.

He kisses my lips finally, and snuggles down into the hot sleeping bag. There's something of a desert wind, but even that's hot. I don't like it. I wish it would rain. Still, I like the fact that we're both on top of the sleeping bag, and I can look down and see him, all of him. He was a beautiful man, before. He whispers to me, "I thought you'd gone an' died on me, Betts."

"Whoops." I gaze up, and the moons look back at me. One is gray, normal sized, and one is smaller, and almost the color of blood. If I squint a little bit, I can see it begin to drip down on the two of us, mixing with the blood in the lake beside us.

Our skin isn't really the right color anymore, because of the red and silver mix. Everything's different. Just look at the sky, and the abomination that's calling itself a heavenly body.

 Just like an apple, it was.

Yes, there's a lake, and yes, we're in the grass, and if there weren't two moons, it might just be nice enough to call a happy family camping trip. There's me, the mother -- though I'm not her mother, even though it would be nice. She's got hair that looks on fire, and it doesn't suit my genes. There's Remy, the father, and the real father too. She has his demon eyes, and her mother's red hair, and she looks so very good in green. And then there's the dedicated aunt, covering her little body with her own, making sure that the angel is defended. 'Ro's a vampire now, and we get a little weaker every time we give her blood, but...

But that's what family does. I stroke his hair, wondering whether we'll have time to wash tomorrow before the next wave hits. I like to be clean when we fuck, it gives me a little bit of a sense of home.

I'm lying against him on my side, but I don't take my eyes off the second moon. I wish I had a mirror, or a telescope, because I think the color's shifting on it ever so subtly. The telescope would be able to tell me whether the sea of blood I imagine is really up there, and the mirror would let me compare the tattooed streak along my face with the color that dances upon that moon up there.

I think it's almost identical. It should bother me.

I turn over onto my back, pulled towards the sight of the puddle in the sky. I look at it again, and watch the circular sea, amid the inkblack, glittery beach that passed for the night sky. Maybe that's me in the sky, and not a moon.

The thought startles me, and I turn over, onto my stomach. It's there. I see it, therefore, I might as well accept that it's there. I've aged far too much in the last... Was it a year? A decade? A month--

I think it was a year.

I've aged so much in the last year. There's a hint of gray in my hair that wasn't there before, and if I was worried about anything anymore, I'd try and cover it up. 'Ro's hair is just the same, and Remy's is like mine. We all need a bath.

Remy lays quietly huddled beside me, and then asks, "Y'wan' t'marry me, Betts?"

Just as if we could decide to get married, just like that. Like the impossible was possible.

The strangest memory suddenly pops into my head. I remember reading an article once, a long time ago, talking all about how in China, people got married in red. The bride wears a bright red dress, lacey and bright and lucky. White was for funerals. White was the color of death.

I think the magazine belonged to Warr--

I don't want to think about that name. It doesn't have any place here anymore. He died, beautiful and strong. To ward away that name, I tell Remy, "Did you know that in China, people wore red to weddings? It's lucky."

I pause, and while pointing to the aberration staring down at us, add, "Does that look like a puddle to you, LeBeau?"

He sighs. "You didn' even hear me, did you."

I don't shake my head, don't nod. "I don't want to do anything, luv."

And I don't. Hope for nothing, and you aren't disappointed, right? He scratches his ribs, then lays a hand on my stomach affectionately. "Y'know, it does remind me of a puddle, Betts. One like in th'tunnels -- back in the ol'days -- y'know?"

I shiver. He's referring to the death of the Morlocks, I guess. Lots of red back then, all of it blood. I sometimes get flashbacks of what I saw inside his head, little fragmented puzzle pieces of gore. It's not nice. He breaths deeply, and looks over to his little girl. His face lights up, and I can read the love he's got for her.

He misses Jean. He's thinking about her again, and I stroke him absently. Poor man -- he was really in love with her, and she was having an affair with Scott, team leader.

Good woman Jean Grey-LeBeau was, stayed with her husband because of their child and their marriage, but was in love with another man. How strange, to think of Jean and Scott having an affair. I say quietly, "I cheated a few times. I don't think he ever found out. It was right after we got engaged, and I don't know why."

Remy grunts, but I think he feels a little better. He keeps looking at his daughter. I think sometimes, that if she were to die, he'd be better off -- less reminders of Jean.

But then, he wants to be reminded of her.

It's amazing that he managed to keep the girl alive -- she's only five, and not much help in the long run. Before, I would have quipped, 'God looks after children and drunkards.'

But there is no God.

I watch the oddities sink below the horizon slowly, dragged down into the abyss beneath the faint line of the world. The silvery one goes first, and pulls its smaller cousin, fading to pink in the predawn sky, behind it. The sun rises, and it's fairly normal, all things considered. I can see the grass, an emerald shade of green, beneath us.

I inhale, and actually smell spring. I can hear the buzzing of insects, and smile, before I realize my insects are just another shift zone coming through. This one looks ugly.

Remy and 'Ro bundle up what little stuff we've managed to collect. It's enough, for now, and so far it's been behaving itself fairly well.

I hold his daughter's hand, and we both close our eyes and imagine that the hum is just crickets, hidden in the reeds at the lakeshore. I think she's a telepath. There's a 'whoosh', and a shiver, and I don't think I'm ever going to get used to this. It feels like an acid trip, the way everything starts to melt--

Remy starts screaming.

Without thinking, I extend my mind to find out what's wrong. I don't open my eyes. I don't want to see this, whatever it is. Feeling it is bad enough. He's encased in blackness, and Ororo's horrified... and then I realize why.

He can't see. How silly of me not to have noticed. His eyes fell out of his head, and now he's virtually blind, and broken, and what can you do without any eyes? I guess I can't leave him now. I say, and my voice is oddly cheery, "Sure, Remy. I'll say yes."

I picture a dress, satin and silk and lace, all in that color of crimson, to match my face, the moon, and the whole fucking world. Sure, we could use some luck.

Ororo's tending his wounds, and I can feel him smiling, even through this. I sit down again, keeping my eyes closed. The ground still feels like grass, but colder, metallic in sensation almost. I shrug. I'm alive. I keep a firm grip on his daughter, because I don't want her to see her daddy like this.

In the black, I can feel the irresistible pull of that phantom heavenly body, wrong in its color and its being, telling me that the end's coming soon. He knows I'm thinking of the Chinese, and doesn't like it. He would prefer white, prefers the irony in the color of death in the joining of souls. I never asked what color his Jean's wedding dress was, and now suddenly it seems very important. He gasps, and hisses through clenched teeth, biting down on the pain, "But I don' have a ring, an' you don' have anything t'wear."

I shrug. I want to laugh. I don't have a tailor, and he can't go to a jeweler. "It's alright, Remy. We probably wouldn't survive the wedding anyway without a major crisis." I can't believe I'm making jokes, but somehow, it's easy now I've seen the signs that nothing's ever fixing this. "None of the X-ers I knew ever had a normal wedding."

His hand rests on my shoulder, and I look up at him, eyes open wide, and scared. He can't see it, of course. I'm scared because he likes the white of ice, I'm drawn to the red of blood, and his face is buried in scraps of cloth that are swiftly being stained pink. But were it whole, I'd be able to see the fatalism in it as well, a mirror of mine and terrifying in its own right.

He jokes right back, "Then we'll jus'have t'elope."

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