breezes

by Lise

Franklin starts seeing ghosts the day after Madelyne Pryor marches into town.

He blinks, at first, and assumes that it is another whim of life after the world ended, another twist in an already hopelessly knotted life. Blinks, and carries on doing what he's doing.

The ghost walks through him then, Betsy with her katana sheathed, and fades into the setting western sun.

~

He sees Betsy, the same older woman with grey streak in her hair and red streak splashing down her face, three times in as many days. Three seconds here, five there. The man he recalls as Mastermind is sitting in the garden at sunset, staring out in an uncharacteristic way at the brightly colored illusion. Franklin's mind drops the sun behind the horizon subconsciously, as he watches the pale figure sit cross-legged, motionless, and then blow away.

They're all like smoke, and in a week, Emma, Monet, and almost a dozen other shadowy figures have appeared to Franklin. They're all motionless. None of them speak. They appear near sun-down, usually, and Franklin's almost grown to expect them.

The decision to tell Nate doesn't come lightly, but after a week and not being able to block them out, or even figure out what they mean, Franklin figures it's time. He's holding one of the babies, a child born into a generation of madness, and spoon feeding it oatmeal, when Jean Grey materializes in front of him. She's carrying a small child, maybe two years old, a little girl with matching red hair. They're facing away from Franklin, staring out the window of the house. It's so quick, he could have blinked long, and missed the pair of them.

Nate's sitting beside him, and so Franklin tells him what he's seen.

"They're all telepaths," Nate says gruffly. "All the people you just named."

Franklin strokes the baby's head gently, and its little red face gradually smoothes out, it stops crying. "Maybe, some of them I couldn't tell--"

"They're all telepaths," Nate says again. "And we got ourselves a new telepath just last week." He dangles a shiny rock in front of the baby, telekinetically, and the baby gurgles, waves a fist. "Ain't that swell."

Franklin turns to the newcomer, is already speaking before she steps over the threshold, before he's even consciously aware of her existence. "You're safe here, you can stay."

A teenaged sillouette stares at him, eyes not blinking and hair blowing though there is no wind. Franklin creates the wind. The teenager is very obviously not breathing. She herself is a breath, no more, and it's in her eyes that Franklin can see death. The sword wound in her side is an afterthought. He glances at it, and then away.

Nate watches him. "What's wrong, Franklin?"

He sees the girl, clearly, and then not, and then, fizzling away, she blows out the window. "They never speak, never stick around."

"Who were you talking to?"

Only then does Franklin realize that no one can see the dead but him. He wonders if it's penance, God's chosen penance for him. He can't go and see the dead beyond the shift walls, and therefore the dead have come visiting, to make sure he gets no rest. Franklin always thought that he saw enough of the dead even here. Apparently not.

"You didn't see her, then," he says, but he already knows. Nate's looking at him like he sprouted seven heads and horns. "A teenaged Jean."

Nate's eyes look like they want to spring tears, like a river of tears is lying just beneath and soon, soon maybe it will flow. God is unkind, Franklin decides, to do this to them, a world already so full of the dead and the awareness of loss. To have shadows start to walk around to remind them all the more...

Nate lets the rock fall to the ground, and holds his hands out for the child. Franklin gives it to him. Nate's finger is wrapped in the baby's fist. Nate asks, "Where did she come from?"

Frankin shrugs. Almost more, he wants to know where she went.

~

Franklin approaches Madelyne to ask for her help in the kitchen. She's slouched down, limply staring up at the sky. For a moment he thought she wasn't real. "What's wrong, Madelyne?"

"It." She shakes her head. "No. I'm fine."

He hunkers down. "I have to ask you something." She turns her gaze on him. Her eyes, they reflect whatever deep, huge chasm she was just staring into a moment ago. "Do you. Can you see things?"

"Things?" She smiles humorlessly. "What kinds of things?"

He turns to look behind him, at the same time Madelyne crains her neck to see around the tree she's leaning against. Betsy, again, holding her katana down at her side. The hilt is loose in her hand and the tip is barely brushing the dirt. "Those kinds of things," Franklin replies, softly, and with the words, Betsy turns to look at them.

"Oh," she says. "Those."

Betsy raises her sword, as if to strike them. The sword passes harmlessly through the tree, instead, leaving no trace of its presence. Betsy shrugs, then. Her smile is enigmatic, one measley quirk of her lips. Franklin can see right through her face to the horizon on the other side.

She goes back to staring out at the shift walls, and very quietly, Franklin asks, "What do they want?"

Madelyne stares at exactly the same place the phantom of Psylocke is focusing on. "I think they want to go back out to the shifts."

Franklin closes his eyes, briefly, and then - of course. Of course. "Why can't Nate see them? He's a strong telepath as well."

She snorts. Franklin keeps his gaze on Psylocke's back, though she doesn't move again. "He isn't empathetic enough, maybe?" She shrugs. Betsy, then, drops the sword, though it makes no sound, no hint of its passing through the air or earth. Betsy shimmers, fades, looks like heat off a scorching highway for the barest second - and then vanishes.

Madelyne says, "I don't know. Maybe they don't want Nate to see them."

~

"You saw Rachel?"

Nate's face is odd, closed off. Franklin, in a split second decision, says, "no."

Nate can easily tell when Franklin's lying, but accepts this with a nod of his head. Patrick follows him out of the kitchen faithfully, head tilted just a little to the side. An impulse, and Franklin calls out after them, "Patrick, wait."

He can see Nate, already moving towards the fishing nets that need repairing. Patrick leans in the doorway. "Yeah?"

"Do you." Franklin swallows. "You think I should have told him the truth?"

A slight shrug, one shoulder barely raised. "It's not my place to say."

"Sure it is." Franklin cannot erase the image of Jean and little baby Rachel, staring out at the sunset he created. "You know him better than I do."

Another minimalistic shrug. No expense of energy. "In some ways. Not in this."

~

Madelyne says no more. Franklin is almost grateful.

~

He thinks they're psychic shadows, remnants of telepaths too powerful to die once their bodies stopped functioning. Part of their minds were shifted, into some other plane, into a Somewhere Else.

As such, he should be able to communicate with them, he should be able to find some bridge from this shift, stable as it is, to where they're from. If they cooperate. If they will speak to him.

Franklin reaches out telepathically, keeping his eyes closed so he can block out Betsy's face. <<hello?>>

nothing.

He opens one eye, carefully, and for once, Betsy is looking right at him - rubbing the back of her neck with a hand, gently, and staring right at him. It is a universal gesture of weariness. Her eyes are dark and deep and everything the poets used to associate with spirits from beyond the veil. Franklin stays still, motionless. She keeps rubbing the nape of her neck, slowly, rhythmically, as if it's a sign of his course of action.

He wants to know how she died. He wants to know how long she lived. Franklin puts his face in his hands while the last light fades from their dome and she disappears. He watches her, until she's see-through, until she's gone, and all the while, Betsy rubs the nape of her neck.

Franklin's hand covers his face, and he exhales through his fingers slowly. The other is absently massaging the back of his neck.

~the end.~

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