Transfiguration: Part Three - Cappadocia
Betsy felt calm, for the first time in weeks.
Accepting the inevitable had done wonders for her perspective. She no longer fought the urge drawing her onwards, hadn't even tried since her plane had landed in Ankara. There was no point. Farouk wasn't going to let her resist. By accepting, she gained some space to think, to gather her strength. Farouk was nothing if not frugal with his; if she didn't resist him, simply followed the pull of Nathan's psi-signature obediently, he wasn't about to waste time drowning her consciousness.
And acceptance had also put him off-guard, made him wonder what she was planning. Let him wonder--let him see. Betsy knew precisely what she was doing, and it was exactly what he wanted her to do. She would find Cable, snare his mind just as she had in the cafˇ, and then--
Then, they would see.
She'd rented a car in Ankara, following Farouk's whispering in her mind. He was the one who'd found Nathan's trail, directed her as she'd left the city.
The car was an hour behind her now, parked at the side of the road. If she'd realized the nature of the terrain, she would have rented something that she could have taken off-road. Cable must have--there was no sign of his vehicle, and he certainly hadn't gotten here from Ankara on foot, or she would have caught up to him long before this.
Truthfully, she didn't mind the walk. It gave her more time, and at this point, every moment was precious.
The landscape was like something out of a dream, she thought distantly. Unreal. Something, some geological force - Alex Summers might have been able to explain what - had shaped the stone into strange formations like--like ice-cream, she thought, shaking her head at the image. The rock formations were pale in the moonlight, and she wondered for a minute what color the sunrise would turn them.
And whether she'd be alive to see it.
The night wind blew stronger, and Betsy listened to the ghostly music it played as it flowed through the holes in the rock. Like flutes, almost. So very beautiful. She thought she remembered reading about this area years ago, about how the people who lived here had carved homes and churches and whole cities out of the rock over the centuries.
There was so much here that wasn't visible. So much beneath the surface.
#What are you planning, Elizabeth?# Farouk murmured, rifling through her thoughts with contemptuous ease.
His curiosity had gotten the better of him at last. She thought very precisely, very luridly, about what she was going to do. How she would find Cable, blanket his mind in shadows before he could do anything to resist, and quench the light inside him, feed on it until there was nothing left, nothing but the empty shell of a mind.
And Farouk retreated a little, in confusion.
#What's the matter?# she sent after him coolly. #Isn't this what you wanted?#
He didn't answer. Betsy took a deep breath, trying not to smile at the small victory. Ironic, that acquiescence could be a weapon.
The darkness inside her rippled in suspicion, then settled in to wait. Well, good. She wasn't feeling much like conversation herself, to be perfectly honest. Fighting back the urge to laugh, she walked onwards through the moonlight, following Cable's trail across the alien landscape.
Eventually, only a forest of chimney-like rock formations - 'fairy chimneys', she remembered dimly from that long-ago book - stood between them. She didn't let herself hesitate. Slipping around the rocks, she saw the jeep, but had eyes only for the man asleep by the dying fire.
She drew nearer. He was restless, she saw, but showed no signs that he was aware of her presence, or indeed, of waking up at all. Dreaming, she thought, seeing the way his eyes moved back and forth beneath closed lids. He was dreaming. Pain and guilt and anger rolled off him in waves that were almost palpable. Betsy hesitated, then scanned him lightly, her stomach twisting as she felt Farouk reach through her and taste Nathan's nightmare, savoring it.
The images were unmistakable. She was back in the desert, at Akkaba, seeing the events of those last few minutes through Nathan's eyes, feeling his horror as he watched Scott lunge forward through the hole in Apocalypse's shield, the one Nathan himself had made. Scott slammed into Apocalypse and Betsy watched that last horrific moment as their forms began to twist and warp, melting into each other. She watched, and knew that it was burned into Nathan's mind forever--
Betsy wrenched free of the memories, and found herself struggling with a sorrow she hadn't expected to feel tonight. "You're so much like him," she murmured, tracing the line of his jaw with a gentle hand, seeing the resemblance so keenly that she spared a moment to wonder how they'd all missed it for so long. "Your father's son."
Her hunger was a pale thing beside Farouk's. In his eagerness, he surged forward onto their link, like some great dark sea creature surfacing in her mind. His excitement made her feel ill.
#What are you waiting for, Elizabeth?# They were so close now on that bloody link that she could see his thoughts, the images running through his mind of himself walking off the astral plane, glutted on power, stronger than he'd ever been.
"Shut up," Betsy hissed softly, curling up beside Nathan and pressing as close as she could, close enough to feel the faint trembling in his powerful body as he struggled in the grip of his nightmare. "I'll do this my way." She caught her breath, waiting, knowing this was the critical moment. If he took over now--
#Oh, you will?# The darkness pushed forward, until the line between them was blurred. He seemed--wary, though. Of her--?
No. Of Nathan. Betsy laughed breathlessly. Afraid, the Shadow King was afraid of a sleeping telepath with wrecked shields and an unsteady grip on his will to live.
"I will," she murmured, holding to the feeling of sorrow that Scott's memory had evoked and the calm she'd felt walking here. Gentler feelings, both of them, than the hunger Farouk had infected her with. "My way." Leaning over Nathan, taking his face between her hands, she kissed him.
Nathan stirred, alarm flaring in his mind, but she pulled shadows around him, pressing him back down into unconsciousness, far deeper than he'd been submerged back in the cafˇ. There was no choice, she had to do this, but Farouk wouldn't get the chance to revel in his--in their victim's fear. Not so long as she still drew breath.
Betsy concentrated, moving through the minefield of his memories and the crumbled ruins of Nathan's defenses. Not dancing this time. The path she chose was the fastest and most efficient, and she was deep in his mind before the first flickers of resistance started to form.
She let the hunger take its course, feeling a distant flicker of distress as strands of darkness exploded out of her mind with horrific force, hooked black tentacles that stabbed deeply into the light at the core of Nathan's mind. His body stiffened beneath hers, his silent scream ringing in her mind. She felt him fighting her, clawing at the darkness, and it took all her strength just to hold him.
Distantly, she felt the tears trickling down her cheeks. #Necessity,# she breathed, #you know all about necessity, Nathan, I know you do--# She kissed him again, reaching deeper and leaning heavily on the right pressure points in his mind. The tension left his body as endorphins flooded his system, and Betsy felt Farouk's disapproval.
#My way,# she flung at him disjointedly as he fed on Nathan through her, consuming the fire until there was nothing left but a soft white glow, pure and strong and so beautiful it broke her heart. It was Nathan's mind--his essence, stripped of all its defenses.
Betsy reached out, grasping at the light, clinging to the sadness and guilt and fear, to every emotion she could summon, using them as a shield against the hunger. She heard Farouk snarl, felt him pushing at her, trying to drive her back to feed, but as she ran imaginary fingers through the light, the need faded.
#What is, is,# she thought to herself, and knew the words weren't hers. She spun the light through her fingers, taunting Farouk with it. #Isn't it a shame that you can only taste this through me,# she murmured to the Shadow King. #You'll never know what it's like. It's like bathing in sunlight, Farouk, and you'll never feel it, because you're so fearful you have to hide behind me--#
Farouk pushed her aside, roaring up their link until he was in Nathan as much as he was in her, a thick, oil blackness spreading through both their minds. He sank the claws of his mind into Nathan, and Betsy, pushed into the background in Farouk's feeding frenzy, seized the moment to reach out down the strained, battered link between Nathan and Jean.
#JEAN!# she screamed. #Help us!#
Fire roared up the link, screaming in Jean's voice. It took on a familiar form, a great fiery bird with massive winds and eyes blazing with hate. It shrieked Farouk's name and tore into him, howling for blood.
Taken off guard, Farouk was torn away from Nathan before he could react. Betsy saw him regain control, sensed him preparing to flee. Crying out in denial, she grasped at the darkness, at the link joining them, and held on with every ounce of willpower she possessed.
Chains had two ends. You could be a prisoner at either.
Farouk roared and struck back at her, trying to free himself, but Jean was on him immediately, the Phoenix-shape ripping and tearing at the darkness, flooding Betsy's mind with its rage.
Anger was strength, even when it wasn't yours. Betsy held tightly to it and to her link with Farouk, even as she felt her own mind start to fragment, pulling apart at the seams under the stress of the combat taking place within.
Memories flashed erratically through her mind's eyes, brilliant and fragmented. Was she dying? Did it even matter? Her world narrowed to the link, and she held on, incapable of anything else.
She was so tired of the fight, so sickened by how he'd used her, the way he'd tarnished everything. The road to hell was paved with good intentions, and though she might have chosen to walk this road when she'd first trapped him, she had no more fight in her. Nothing left to give.
The Phoenix faltered, screaming in pain now. Farouk roared in triumph, and the Phoenix faded, thrown out of Betsy's mind by the darkness.
Lost. Jean had lost.
It was over. She might have wept, but she couldn't feel her body anymore. Couldn't feel much of anything. The pieces of her mind started to fall, glimmering like shards of crystal in the lingering glow of battle.
Let go. It was time to let go--
Another presence exploded out of the darkness, and Farouk's derisive laughter turned into a scream. The new presence was brighter than the Phoenix, seemingly stronger as well. Something in its shape suggested wings, but there was no clear form to it, just white-gold light, striking at Farouk over and over again. Betsy tasted the acid edge of berserker fury, like Logan's but different, somehow--
The voice snarling in a language she didn't understand was Nathan's.
Her mind echoed with what sounded like a battle cry, but for some reason, Nathan shifted his focus. His next attack wasn't directed at Farouk, but at the link between her and the Shadow King. The blow smashed into it, shattering it instantly.
Farouk fled, howling, and Betsy fell gratefully into a very different darkness.
***
Fighting his way back to consciousness, the first thing Nathan registered was the taste of blood at the back of his throat. It was overwhelming, choking him, and he struggled weakly up to a sitting position, coughing violently. The weight on his chest shifted, sliding downwards, and he was left blinking down at Betsy where she sprawled limp and unmoving across his lap.
His mind was afire with pain, but he reached out feebly, trying to grasp at the memory of whatever had just happened. It was in pieces, indecipherable fragments that refused to assemble themselves into any sort of whole.
"Braddock," he managed, squinting against the firelight, not understanding why it hurt his eyes. She didn't move, didn't respond to his voice, and he managed to summon up enough coordination to reach down and slide an arm around her shoulders, propping her up. "Betsy," he tried again, his voice still gravelly. Her head fell against his chest, a strangely boneless movement, and he felt a rush of fear at the shallowness of her breathing. #Betsy,# he whispered into her mind, but the only response was from his headache, which seemed to spontaneously decide to double in intensity.
He was used to coping with pain, though. Nathan reached out with a shaking hand, pushing the fall of purple hair away from Betsy's face. He recoiled at the blood. She was bleeding from ears, nose, mouth--eyes. His training might be lacking in far too many critical areas, but he knew that what he was seeing were signs of severe psionic trauma.
Had he done this to her? He remembered being in her mind, fighting--something, he wasn't sure what. Not her. He hoped. Flinching at the twist of guilt, he used the corner of the blanket tangled between them to try and wipe some of the blood away and tried frantically to remember what had happened, to think of what he could do for her.
#Nathan--# Jean's voice, but unutterably faint. Exhausted, somehow. #Farouk--#
Nathan stiffened. "The Shadow King," he rasped, remembering something. Darkness, and a sense of violation, of being--drained, somehow.
The pieces still didn't come together. But he could see the pattern now, know it intellectually even if his memory was still refusing to behave. He remembered being told about Psylocke and Farouk, about what had happened between them. With everything that had happened since, the High Evolutionary's meddling and the changes in the astral plane--
The fuzzy sense of Jean's presence was gone. He didn't try to reach out to her; she wasn't the one who needed help right now. Closing his eyes, focusing fiercely, he ignored the pain and reached into Betsy's mind, knowing that he had a finite amount of time before his strength gave out.
What he saw staggered him. He could tell where the battle had been, could see the traces of Jean's presence and his, and oily smudges of darkness that stung like acid to the touch and left him feeling sick to his stomach. Betsy's mind was broken in more places than he could count, barely clinging to a semblance of cohesion.
Dimly, he recalled Nate Grey, the first time they'd fought--Nate's mind had been just as damaged, maybe worse. But he'd helped the boy, stitched his mind back together. It had taken all his strength and compromised his control over the virus for weeks, but he'd healed him.
You know, I couldn't levitate a bar of soap out of the cupboard this morning when I was in the shower? But my telepathy's gotten so much stronger, Jean's words echoed in his mind. And you've just gotten stronger all around.
Stronger. He'd felt the changes in his power levels. So maybe he could do this, even with his own mind burning from whatever battle he'd fought.
Carefully, slowly, he wove delicate threads of psi-energy through her mind, like sutures. He didn't know her well enough--he could have done this for Jean far more easily, but what was, was, and he could only put the pieces of Elizabeth Braddock together as they seemed to fit. There would be scars, even if the damage healed, but she'd have to learn to live with them. It was the price of fighting, rather than surrendering.
He was too focused on the task at hand to do more than register distantly that there was something different about Betsy's mind. There was still power there, he could sense it, but it was brighter, stronger than it had been--and simpler, somehow. Less subtle. Changed.
He could figure it out if he tried. But his strength was running out, like water from a sieve, and it was all he could do to finish stitching her mind back together, to tie off the 'thread'. Shaking with the effort, his vision going dark around the edges, he nudged her deeper into unconsciousness and he slipped out of her mind. Sleep was good. Sleep that knit the raveled sleeve of--whatever.
He knew he was losing it when he kept coming up with these damned quotations. Nathan reached out for his canteen, and did the best to get the rest of the blood off her face. As he tried to clean her up, he noticed that her breathing was growing steadier. Within a few minutes, she'd even moved again of her own accord, curling against his chest as if she were trying to hide.
Nathan sat there for a while, holding her, and reflected that what he'd just done had been a lot less draining than when he'd done it for Nate Grey. Oh, he still felt like he wanted to topple over like a felled tree and sleep for the next month, but the virus hadn't advanced a bit. Wasn't even reacting. .
He closed his eyes, comparing the fragmented memories he'd seen in Betsy's mind to his own. Together, they were enough to give him a semi-clear picture of what had happened. He opened his eyes, staring down at the woman in his arms with a certain weary respect. From a contemporary standpoint, her choice of tactics had been insane, but he could appreciate them. He'd made similar choices in his time.
Besides, it looked like they were both going to live through it. It was the best that could be expected, from what should have been a no-win situations. Nathan sighed deeply. "Remind me to buy you a drink someday, Betsy," he murmured exhaustedly, and decided that he felt strong enough to do something about getting the two of them out of there.
***
Waking up was a gradual process. Betsy was sure that she'd been seeing and hearing things around her for a while, but it took some time before she was able to actually open her eyes and process her surroundings.
She was lying on a narrow but comfortable bed, in a room that was wholly unfamiliar, and more than a little stranger. The walls looked like rock, she thought faintly, blinking in an attempt to clear her vision. Rock walls, yet there was sunlight and a fresh breeze coming from somewhere. It didn't quite mention.
"Good morning," a voice said softly from somewhere beside her. Betsy turned her head, with some difficulty - she felt stiff, as if she'd been asleep for far longer than she should have been - and peered at the red-haired woman sitting beside her bed. "How are you feeling?" Jean asked, her voice just as quiet.
Betsy thought about the question for a few moment. His head hurt, but in a dull, distant sort of way. She felt as weak as a kitten, but she didn't feel a trace of the hunger, and she had no sense of Farouk at all. "Not--bad," she said, appalled at how weak her voice sounded. "C-Cold, though."
Jean reached towards her. Betsy flinched, but the other woman merely shook her head and adjusted the blankets covering her. "You're still a little feverish," Jean said, her tone almost soothing. "You were in psionic shock, but it's fading."
Jean looked--pale, Betsy though. Tired. She tried to reach out to the other woman's mind--and couldn't. Fear stirred within her, coupled with a strange sort of relief. "I can't--" She coughed, trying to clear her throat, and went on a little more strongly. "I can't sense you."
Jean leaned back, giving her a strangely whimsical smile. "You know, I think Nathan was right after all?" she murmured, sounding almost bemused. "I didn't give him enough credit. It just sounded like Askani mysticism, to me."
Betsy didn't understand what she was talking about. She looked away, her eyes roving the room. Her vision grew a little more clear, but she started to wish it hadn't, as things started to seem more--vivid but simultaneously less solid. "Jean, everything's--strange," she said, her voice cracking. It was like she was looking into things, seeing beneath the surface somehow. Everything vibrated with--energy? "What's wrong with me?" she whispered, gripping the blankets tightly, her shattered nerves whimpering a protest. No more--she'd had just about as much as she could take--
"Nothing at all, Betsy," Jean said, sounding so utterly casual that Betsy, for one absurd moment, wanted to sit up and box her ears. Jean laughed gently, as if she'd overheard the thought - which she probably had - and leaned closer, those green eyes intent. "Do you realize that you were never fully integrated into the astral plane again after our powers came back?" she asked. Betsy stared at her, unable to come up with any kind of a response, and Jean went on. "It seems to have been a side-effect of the link between you and Farouk." She shook her head, her mouth twisting in distaste. "I hate to call it a link. Something like that--it was more like the two of you had blurred, gotten tangled up in each other."
Betsy shuddered. "I know," she managed, squeezing her eyes shut. Over, she told herself. It was over. Her mind was her own again, and she even felt--clean.
"I'm sorry, Betsy. I should never have assumed that the disruption of the astral plane killed him or drove him out of your mind. You have to wonder if he was ever actually gone," Jean said with a sigh. "He may have been there all along, and just reconstituted himself inside your mind when our powers came back. It's hard to tell."
Bile rose at the back of her throat at the image of Farouk incubating inside her, like a virus. "So what's happened to my telepathy?" she asked roughly, without opening her eyes. "Am I burned out?"
Jean was silent for a long moment. "Nathan and I have noticed changes in our powers, since they came back," she finally said, evading Betsy's question. "My telekinesis is fading but my telepathy's getting stronger. His power levels are higher than they've ever been."
"I know," Betsy murmured, and then her eyes snapped open in horror as she faced the memories squarely.
How had she--why hadn't that been the first thing she'd asked when she'd woken up?
"Nathan--where is he?" she asked wildly. "Is he--"
Jean cut her off before she could finish her question. "We'll talk about that in a minute," she said, calmly enough that Betsy was very slightly reassured. Surely if Nathan was hurt, or--worse, Jean wouldn't be this relaxed. Not with Scott's loss still so fresh a grief. "Betsy, what was the last thing you remember thinking, or--feeling, before you passed out?"
Betsy swallowed, with difficulty. Her throat felt as dry as sandpaper. "I--" She bit off the rest of what she'd been about to say, her protest that she didn't remember. Because she did--not the specifics, but the emotions, certainly. The desperation to be free of Farouk, no matter what it took, to be beyond his reach forever--
"I thought so," Jean said, breaking the silence. "It would explain things. Nathan's theory is that we dictated the course of our own changes." She gave Betsy a strangely bittersweet smile. "Once Nathan broke the link with Farouk, you were reintegrated into the astral plane. If you were thinking, at that moment, that you never wanted to be vulnerable to Farouk again--it makes sense that your telepathy's gone." Jean shook her head. "I wonder what happened to Farouk," she murmured, and then shivered. "Maybe that's not something either of us should dwell on."
It was all making sense. Horrible sense. If she hadn't been connected to the astral plane, maybe Farouk hadn't been either. That could have been the reason for his need to feed on psi-energy, if he'd been cut off from his usual source of power. Betsy wrenched her mind back from that train of thought. "But I can--feel something. How can my powers be gone?" she asked. Jean simply stared back at her, almost speculatively, and Betsy snapped. "Tell me!" she demanded, reaching out instinctively, in a clumsy effort to read the truth in Jean's mind.
She didn't, of course. Her telepathy didn't respond any more than it had the last time.
But something else did. The oil lamp on the bedside table lunged forward, off the edge. Jean rocked forward in her chair, and caught the lamp before it could hit the floor. Betsy stared in shock as Jean replaced the lamp on the table, making a face at the puddle of oil on the floor.
"Your powers aren't gone, Betsy," she said. There was a bowl of water on the table, too, and Jean reached into it, pulling out a wet rag and sliding out of the chair to her hands and knees to clean up the mess. "They've just changed," she said, mopping up the oil
Changed. Telekinesis?
No, that wasn't possible. Jean had done it, or--
"Believe me, Betsy," Jean said wryly. "That was all you." She gave Betsy a wry flicker of a smile that somehow reminded her of Cable. Or maybe it was the other way around? "Kind of nifty, isn't it?"
Nifty. Biting back a choked laugh, Betsy summoned all her strength and managed to sit up. The effort left her shaking and weak, and she leaned back against the headboard of the bed, taking a closer look at the room around her as Jean finished cleaning up and rose, sitting back down in the chair. "Where are we?" she asked shakily. This looked very much like a room carved right out of the rock. The window was roundish and large, clearly a natural opening. One of the rock dwellings, she thought, flashing on that walk through the moonlight. "Where's Nathan?"
"I forget the name of the town," Jean said calmly. "Kay-something or other. It's a few hours south of where you found Nathan. Apparently he brought you here and left you in the care of the people who own this--house, I guess you'd call it." She smiled again, more whimsically this time. "Nice old couple, although the fact that they just about genuflect when you mention Nathan's name is a bit alarming."
"Where is he?" Betsy persisted, almost desperately. The way she was avoiding answering that particular question--
Jean finally sighed, and relented. "I'm not sure. He brought you here and left." Betsy opened her mouth to demand of Jean why she was still here, why she hadn't gone after her son, but Jean went on, before she could form the words. "He saved your life, Betsy. I would never have gotten here in time to put your mind back together."
Betsy ran a shaking hand through her tangled hair, trying to remember. She couldn't. Everything was so mixed up, so--broken. "After what I did to him," she said hoarsely, "I'm surprised he didn't just let me die."
"Betsy--" Jean hesitated. "He saved your life," she went on, very gently, "but you saved his, first."
Betsy blinked at her, and then shivered as she felt Jean's presence in her mind, showing her everything, taking her through the memories from Jean's perspective, as if a film reel was unwinding in her mind.
She shared Jean's shock at being awakened by her scream for help--saw herself clinging to Farouk, holding onto their link and keeping him there while Jean went on the offensive.
She sensed Jean's frantic realization that she was losing the battle, that she'd expended too much energy in that first attack--felt her falter and cry out in impotent rage as Farouk flung her out of Betsy's mind.
Then, from a distance, she saw Nathan launch himself into the battle, shattering the bonds of darkness trapping him, and hammering at Farouk in a towering rage. It would have gone on like that until Nathan had exhausted himself, Betsy realized. But Jean, even from a distance, had seen the truth, and had called out to him across their link, telling him where to strike. That was what had made him change tactics and attack the link binding Betsy to the Shadow King.
The flow of images stopped. Betsy was left staring at Jean and feeling more than a little amazed that there'd been anything left of her mind to put back together, after it had been the site of a telepathic battle of that magnitude. "You figured it out," she said unsteadily. "I'm glad."
"You might have come to me," Jean said softly. She was still lingering in Betsy's mind, making no attempt to shield herself, so that even without her telepathy, Betsy could sense her emotions. They were a complex mixture of relief and pity and gratitude, grief for Scott lurking ever-present beneath the surface. "But I know why you made the choices you did, Betsy. And I do have to thank you," Jean said quietly, and for a moment, there was utter desolation in those green eyes. "I don't think I could have endured losing Nathan, too."
Betsy swallowed, her eyes blurring with tears. The gratitude--it was just too much. "Jean," she said hoarsely, her hands clenching into white-knuckled fists on the blankets, "you can't be serious. I didn't help Nathan--for God's sake, I mind-raped him! Twice!"
"And Farouk did worse to you," Jean said, sympathy replacing the desolation. Betsy nearly writhed at the sight of it. "Far worse, without the excuse of needing to buy time to get help." She leaned forward, placing her hand over Betsy's. "You fought him, and you won," she said forcefully.
"The things I've done--"
"Think about the things you didn't do," Jean said, almost sharply. "I've been in your mind for most of the last twelve hours, burning away every smear of filth the bastard left behind." She squeezed Betsy's hand tightly. "I know you've done things you're not proud of, these last few weeks," she said, almost roughly, "but they're nothing compared to what you could have done if you'd surrendered to him. You fought, Betsy. You saved lives by fighting." Jean let go, patted her hand, and then leaned back. Giving her some space. "Keep that in mind, would you, before you go spiraling downwards into an orgy of self-flagellation?"
Betsy gave a tiny, cracked laugh, shocked that it came so naturally. "You sound like Hank," she said, wiping her eyes.
The corner of Jean's mouth quirked upwards. "I try. Now, get some more rest. I'm going to see if I can't track down my wayward child. Then we need to talk a little about your telekinesis." Betsy supposed she must have looked alarmed, because Jean laughed easily, and gave her the telepathic equivalent of a gentle hug as she rose from her chair. "Lots to learn, Betsy, but kindly don't go experimenting. We owe it to our hosts to leave the furniture more or less intact."
After a moment, with some effort, Betsy managed a smile.
***
Several days later, deep in the western steppes of Uzbekistan, Nathan Dayspring Summers drifted slowly to sleep under the stars, feeling far more peaceful than he had in weeks.
It was due mostly to honest weariness; he'd been alone here for three days, the only person in kilometers, and he'd spent much of the time working hard on his shields. Hours and hours of meditation later, he'd restored his defenses to something approaching a functional level.
The encounter with Psylocke and the Shadow King had been a definite reality-check. Nathan shifted uneasily in his half-doze as the fragmented memories spun through his mind like broken dreams. The aftereffects had almost faded, but the sense of violation still bothered him, from time to time. Almost unconsciously, he thickened the walls around his mind.
His walls. They were rough-hewn stone walls at best now, nothing like the shields of shining adamantium he'd once possessed, but they'd do. No one would be waltzing through them at leisure, at least.
It was all he could manage, until he came to some kind of conclusion about what he truly wanted. He wasn't sure that he wanted to go on living, not when he'd made such a mess of things and people he cared for had paid the price for his failure--
"Scott," he muttered faintly, painfully, and curled up beneath the sleeping bag, huddling around the ache in his chest as if he could crush it out of existence.
--but he wasn't sure he wanted to stop, either. Death would be the coward's way out, the easy way, and he had enough pride left to find the idea unsettling.
He'd have to decide, one way or the other. Until then, he'd go on. Maybe he would keep walking until he found himself, after all.
The dilemma eventually slid from his thoughts, and sleep claimed him at last. Some indeterminate amount of time later, he sensed the two presences, but decided that it had to be a dream. He was still asleep, after all.
It wasn't a bad dream, either. He hadn't dreamed of Jean in a while, but here she was, and the other presence felt familiar, too, if--unsteady, as if it wasn't here of its own volition and lacked control over its own form.
"You're doing fine, Betsy," he heard Jean say, and felt her leaning over him, her lips brushing his temple lightly.
"I'm just not used to being a passenger, Jean."
"You're holding your form better than most non-telepaths would," Jean said, almost playfully. "Experience counts for something."
"One would hope!"
If they were going to have a theoretical discussion, why couldn't they go away? He was trying to sleep.
There was a soft laugh from Jean's direction. "Sorry, sweetheart," she said, and he didn't resist the mental caress that came along with the words. "Just checking up on you."
"Is he all right?" Betsy asked. She'd drawn closer, too. He could sense it. She felt so hesitant--he knew what guilt tasted like.
"Better than all right, actually. He's even managed to get his shields back in order, more or less." Jean sounded surprised, and he grumbled in his sleep, fighting the urge to pull the sleeping bag over his head. Maybe if he hid, they'd go away.
"Now we know why it wasn't as easy for you to find him."
"Well, at least some good's come out of this." Shields or no shields, he could feel her in his mind, taking a good long look around. Her presence was colored with sadness, still. "No lasting effects from what Farouk did to him, as far as I can tell," she said to Betsy. "He's always been very resilient. In some ways, at least."
"Why not--" Betsy hesitated. "You could--encourage him to come back," she suggested slowly.
Oh, he didn't like that idea. He did his very best to wake up and tell them both where they could shove it, but Jean deftly blocked him, nudging him back down into more-or-less-complete unconsciousness before he could get very far at all.
He could still hear them, though.
"I won't do that," Jean said. "It would be hypocritical. I ran away, to Alaska. I took the time I needed. He spent all that time trapped in that damned cocoon, Betsy. This is the first chance he's had to try and deal with all of this."
"Is he, though?" Betsy sighed. "Dealing with it, I mean?"
"In his own inimitable way," Jean said, still sounding sad. "We should go. Let him sleep."
"All right." Betsy drew nearer again. "Thank you, Nathan," she murmured, and he got the most bizarre impression that she'd kissed him. "Be safe."
Then she was fading into the distance, the same as Jean was, but Nathan could hear them still, talking and laughing.
"Should I be asking what your intentions are towards my son, Betsy?"
"Oh, please, Jean. He's really not my type."
"I didn't think so." Jean's laugh was wistful. "He's his father's son, though."
"I won't argue with that."
Silence descended, and Nathan muttered and rolled over, slipping deeper into a peaceful - and thankfully dreamless - sleep.
fin
[FOOTER]