X-Men: Dark Mirror Part 27

It was always a lie when people said they were prepared to meet their end. Logan had told that lie once or twice, and he was telling it to himself again. He was bleeding pretty bad. Not that it was getting his spirits down or anything.

He staggered to his feet and managed to dodge a direct blow to his stomach. Those claws sank into his lungs instead. He tasted blood, and gazed into his own smirking facea"

a"and then he found himself on the other side of the claws and his body felt good and strong, and oha"oh, poor kid, that poor girla"and he sheathed his claws and caught Patty as she fell to the ground, dead. The teddy bear stuck in the back of her belt looked especially mournful.

Jane did not want to leave Wolverine's body. She fought viciously and nothing Jean did could hold her. She wanted blood and she went after the sweet spot inside Maguire's mind, tearing out a chunk. Jonas screamed.

Jean tried not to listen. She found Kurt anda"

a"his counterpart enjoyed this joke a little too much, dropping people off in the middle of the sky and then das.h.i.+ng away to parts unknown. Kurt thought it was especially rude, and especially terrifying to be free-falling through the sky, but he saw Rogue fly toward him and he trusted her to catch hima"

a"and she did, but Kurt watched her do it from a distance and he looked down at his hands, his lovely blue hands with their thick nails and oh! His tail. Oh, how very wonderful to be home again.

Patty was harder. Not as bad as Jane, but she whined a lot more and at this point Maguire was no longer building barriers. Patty flowed like a snake from Nightcrawler into the comers of Maguire's mind, writhing on a round white belly, but Jean had no more time for these people because Scott was the only one left, and she did this one special, with a light toucha"

a"a very light touch on his mind, and he knew it was Jean the moment she entered his thoughts, because though she had flown off the roof, the Phoenix always rose: his Jean, his lovely wife with her beautiful heart, and she carried him from that burning, hurting placea" his borrowed body seared, skin cracked and black and peeling, his lungs full of firea"and with a sharp kick she knocked the malevolent stranger out of his real body.

She placed his soul inside the flesh, settled him sweet, and with a kiss and a touch unwound a golden thread, pinning it to his heart, pinning it to hers.

And then he opened his eyes and the world was red again and Jean stood in front of him, radiant in that red, and he leaned forward and hugged her.

21.

THEY DID NOT ATTEND THE MUTANT-RIGHTS MARCH. Jean used her telekinesis to gather up the bodies. Careful, quick, because Logan heard helicopters coming: news reporters or the police, who had probably noticed some commotion on the rooftop. A beautiful thing, being able to hear them coming.

He thought it was another beautiful thing to see their impostors, those lost men and women, float through the air to the mini-jet. Beautiful, because Jean was back to her old self, powers intact. And yet, he felt an odd sadness in his heart when he looked at the woman he had lived in. Patty, dead. He even felt sorry for Mindy, whose heart had stopped soon after Scott left her body.

The rest of them stared unblinking, unmoving. Logan studied their faces, trying not to be distracted by the smells and sounds rus.h.i.+ng through him, or the familiar weight of his skeleton, grounding him to earth. He rubbed his knuckles and felt a good sharpness just beneath his skin.

The X-Men piled into the mini-jet. Maguire sat upright in the back, eyes open but unseeing, restrained only by the force of Jean's mind. Drool dripped down his chin.

Scott spared him a quick glance before powering the jet engines.

"Well," he said, quiet. "At least we're home."

It was good to be home again. Little comforts, like the luxury of hot coffee in the morning, a shower, actual toilets. Beds, washers and dryers, a closet full of clothes, not going hungry because forty dollars might have to last five people on a trip across America.

And yet, Rogue would not give up those memories for anything.

Maybe one I would. If I could, I would change that, at least.

A man dead. Rogue thought about calling the administrator at Belldonne to wheedle out the name she had wanted so badly. She knew what Logan would say: that she was a glutton for punishment, better to leave well enough alone.

She stood in the doorway of the infirmary and watched Logan sit on the edge of Jubilee's bed. The girl was still asleep.

Remy was not. He lay very still in the next bed with only his eyes moving, glittering in the light. He looked terrible; the left side of his body was one large bruise and his lips were cracked. He said nothing to her, simply waiting. Rogue remembered what it was like without her powersa"her fear and insecuritya"how she had been uncomfortable touching even when she could.

You need to grow up, she told herself. Or else stop complaining about the hand that's been given you. The only thing keeping you from being happy is yourself It doesn't have anything to do with skin.

No, nothing at all to do with that. Rogue reached into her pocket to finger the card that Suzy had given her. Nine of spades, dreams and illusion. Her skin was the illusion, her excuse. Untouchable body, untouchable heart: the perfect recipe for never getting hurt.

Rogue walked to Remy. She watched him take a deep breath. He did not say anything, just reached for her. Rogue fought her instincts and did not pull away as his fingers wrapped loose around her covered wrist. She sat down beside him and kissed the air above his head.

"I'm glad to see your eyes again," he murmured. "I missed that about you."

"That so?" she asked lightly. "I was here the entire time, sugah. I'm sure you saw plenty."

"No," he said, and his hand tightened. 'Tour body wasn't what I missed."

Heat spread through her face. She forgot how to speak.

Remy smiled.

Logan paid no attention to the lovebirds. A distant part of him was happy for Rogue, that she was there and touching and being touched. About time, he thought. Maybe the trip into someone else's body had been good for her, after all.

It certainly had not been good for Logan, nor Jubilee. He watched the girl's face, hurting for her, trying not to imagine what had happened but knowing exacdy: each punch, each touch fueled by rage.

When she finally began to stir, to open her eyes, he felt a moment of panic.

This was a bad idea. What were you thinking, making yourself the first thing she sees? You'll scare the kid.

He stood, but before he could take a step he felt a small hand grab his fingers. Jubilee still had her eyes closed.

"Hey, Wolvie," she whispered.

Logan swallowed hard. "Hey. How're you feeling, darlin?"

"Not bad," she said, and tugged on his hand. He sat, perching uncomfortably on the edge of the bed in case she freaked out and he needed to run. But she just smiled, and finally opened her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said. He had not intended to apologize for anything, but the words slipped out, hoa.r.s.e and broken.

"Wasn't you," she said. "I figured that out."

"But it was my body. I thought ... I thought you would be afraid of me for that."

"Dude," she said, those fearless blue eyes still staring at him. "You're crazy."

A short gasp of laughter escaped him. Gentle, slow, he reached out and ruffled her hair.

"Yeah, kid," he whispered. "I suppose I am."

The rest of the team eventually trickled into the infirmary. They brought chairs with them, or perched on empty beds. It was good to be together. Home, again. Jean gazed around at all their faces, familiar as her own, and for a moment missed those worn human bodies that had carried them across the country, and which now lay in comas, kept alive by machines.

For a while no one said much, and then, slowly, with great detail and occasional laughter, they told their storiesa"the escape, the journeya"or here at the Mansion, the unraveling mystery of the impostors.

"So that's how it goes," Jean said, when almost everything else had been told and all that was left was the how and why of their survival. "All those times I thought I felt Cerebro or my counterpart, it was really just the Phoenix."

"I still don't get it," Rogue said. Remy sat behind her with his arm draped over her shoulder, his hands occasionally playing with her hair. Rogue had a lot of color in her cheeks.

"The Phoenix force is separate from my mutant abilities, although it does add to and enhance them. When I was taken from my body, the Phoenix was left behind, but it. . . recognized the difference. It knew that I was gonea"me, Jean Greya"and it went searching for me. I think it would have stayed, but Jeffs body wasn't compatible for what it wanted. When I got face-to-face with my body, though, the Phoenix ... arranged things to its satisfaction."

"Meaning it switched you back?"

"Exactly."

"Nice," Logan said. Jubilee sat close beside him, not a sign of unease in her slim body. Jean thought Logan looked more rattled. She did not blame him; knowing that her body had been used to harm Remy . .. well, it did not get much worse than that. She still felt responsible.

"I called the hospital," Scott said, propping his feet up on a bed railing. "There's no change in Maguire. He's still a vegetable. Same with our... hosts."

"As far as Maguire goes, there isn't ever going to be a change," Jean said. "His ident.i.ty got eaten alive by those five, and they're too lost in him to ever return to their own bodies. They are stuck there together until the day he dies." Not that Patty or Mindy ever had a choice in the matter. Their bodies had died in the fight; they were lost forever.

"He is a relatively young man," Kurt said, his voice heavy with meaning, and that was something Jean did not want to think about. Maguire's body was in the most terrible kind of prison, the darkest mirror for minds with nothing to do but reflect upon each other the worst of their madness. Jean had returned to Maguire's mind one more time before dropping him and the others off at a private hospital where Xavier had connections, the influence to buy quality care without any questions asked.

She did not want to enter his mind again. At least not for some time.

"We do bear some of the responsibility," Ororo said quietly, looking over Logan's shoulder at the teddy bear in his lap. "We killed his family."

"We killed a lot more than that," Scott said. "We have a lot to answer for."

"Even if it was just an accident?" Jubilee asked.

"Dead is dead," Rogue said, looking at her hands. "Doesn't matter if you kill by accident. There's always a price to pay."

"Perhaps we did not pay enough," Kurt mused.

Logan held up the teddy bear, its fur scruffy and worn and sweet.

"We're paying," he said quietly. "I think we'll keep paying, for a long time yet."

A low chime sounded through the room: the alarm. Scott ran to the wall monitor and patched in to the main computer.

"Trouble," he said. "The Brotherhood, maybe. Police reports are coming in from Atlanta."