What Remains, an X-Men movieverse story by Glacis. Rated PG13/slash. No copyright infringement intended. Spoilers for the movie X-Men 3: the Last Stand.

Darkness. Caught, trapped, suffocated, floating, lost in the darkness, she knew only one thing.

Scott.

Scott could help her.

Scott would free her.

In the darkness, his name echoed.

Scott!

He knew he was losing his mind; he just couldn’t bring himself to care.

Ever since he’d lost her, he felt like he’d lost himself. The reassuring warmth of her presence in the back of his mind, so much a part of him he seldom noticed when it was there, ached like a phantom limb now it was gone. Along with his broken heart, Scott Summers had a broken mind.

If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t be hearing her.

Crying out to him. Calling his name. Desperation and fear echoed in the single word, reverberating in his skull until he wanted to bash his head against a wall to make it stop. He’d even tried, once. It didn’t work. Just gave him a hell of a headache, knocked off his glasses, scared the crap out of himself … he squinted his eyes shut as hard as hard as he could and he scrabbled around on the floor with his hands until he found them, then curled up in a ball and trembled for hours. Wolverine brought him out of that one, asking if he was okay in a disconcertingly gentle voice until Scott yelled at him to go away.

He was failing in his responsibilities; to Charles, to the school, to the team, to the kids. He couldn’t care less.

She was lost.

So was he.

The man known as Wolverine had never been a team player. At least, not that he remembered, and shit as his memory was, some things were burnt into the muscle and sinew. Reactions to threats, throwing himself headfirst at danger, not waiting for the slow and the weak to catch up, these things were as much a part of him as his claws or his temper. Offense was the best defense, or whatever the hell he’d told Storm, and he was used to attacking first and questioning any survivors later.

If there was a later.

If there were any survivors.

But this thing with Jean. This thing with Scott. He couldn’t see the enemy. Death was something he’d unconsciously sought and never been able to take for himself, especially during the long painful years in the lab. Once he got out, once he slaughtered his enemy and escaped alone to lick his wounds in private, he’d stopped searching for death and just accepted, wearily, that it wasn’t for him.

When it took the few he cared about, it pissed him off.

Weirdly enough, he couldn’t get pissed off at Scott, though, even when the guy was being a bastard. Some people don’t heal so fast, huh, bub? Yeah, well, some wounds don’t show. Didn’t mean they didn’t hurt. He couldn’t bring himself to say it, though, not when he could see the lines that hadn’t been there before in Scott’s face, not when he could smell the tears on his skin.

It was fucking confusing. He’d wanted Jean the second he saw her. Wanted to wrap her up in silk and keep her safe, wanted to strip her down and make love to her until even his healing capacity couldn’t get him up again. Losing her was like taking a shot to the gut that didn’t heal, but he couldn’t really say he’d lost her, because as much as he was afraid he loved her, she’d never really been his. Might have been was for dreamers and idiots, and Wolverine was neither.

Scott was a different story. Cyke was a thorn in his side since he’d first met the man, first with his attitude, then with his claim on Jean. Then with other things, more subtle things, things that gave Wolverine an itch he’d recognized intimately but refused to admit. Scott’s scent got in his head, the lean strength of him pushing against Wolverine as they fought, the underlying urge to fuck him buried under the competitive urge to fight him. The underlying scent of lust rising off both of them neither one would admit. The mouth that could express so much without saying a word; the eyes he’d never get a chance to see. Wolverine didn’t know where it might have led.

Maybe if there hadn’t been Jean, maybe if it hadn’t been so easy to pretend they were both just fighting for her, maybe something might have happened. Maybe he’d have taken Cyke out in the woods and stripped him naked and not let him leave until neither one of them could walk.

And maybe, if there’d been time, it might have been Jean and Scott both, and wouldn’t that have been a kick in the nuts? Sometimes he thought about that. Usually late at night in bed where nobody could see him hump the mattress or pound his fist against the bed frame or wipe his face with the sheet, not sure if it was sweat or tears he was wiping away but swearing even to himself it was only sweat.

But there had been Jean. And there had been no time. So nothing happened. Then there wasn’t Jean any more, and now nothing would ever happen with either one of them.

Wolverine watched Scott go out the door, heard the roar of the engine as Scott got on his bike and rode off God knew where, and stood in the hall until long after the sound faded away to nothing.

Too damned much nothing in his life, and he didn’t see it getting any better any time soon.

With a growl, he turned and walked down to the Danger Room. Might as well kick some holographic ass. If nothing else, he could still fight.

The voice was unbearable.

Scott followed it, unable to do anything else, up the long wooded road to the north, until he stood at the site of the catastrophe. Alkali Lake was disturbingly peaceful, on the surface at least. It was huge since the breaching of the dam, but the water scarcely rippled. He stood on a rocky outcropping and stared out over the water, unsure of what he searched for but knowing it was here.

The voice came back, harsher and louder and more desperate than ever. He clamped his hands over his ears in a futile gesture, curling over at the pain that ripped through his mind, down his spine, out through his limbs until all he knew, all he was, was her voice. Finally, not knowing what else to do, he let it all out, all the rage and grief and pain, tearing his glasses off his face and allowing his Sight to flame, out of control, into the water.

It was as if he’d broken open a tomb.

Or perhaps a chrysalis.

The center of the earth fractured below the lake, a funnel forming that gave birth to a shockwave. Scott barely got his glasses back on before the concussive force of the air threw him flat on his back, knocking the air out of his lungs. When he could breathe, and see, and had his bearings back, he knew for certain he’d lost his mind.

Because there she stood, in front of him. Whole and alive and beautiful. Smiling at him. Calling his name. For the first time in months, he heard her voice say his name with love, not desperation. It gave him peace, not pain. Even if he was insane, it was a wonderful madness.

Then she told him to take off his glasses. “I want to see your eyes.”

He hadn’t gotten her back just to blast her into oblivion. “I can’t!” He shook his head in denial.

“I can control it,” she told him softly, her voice commanding him to believe her words. “Do you trust me?”

Of course he did. He just didn’t want her to die. Again.

But then, the last time she’d told him to do this, she’d seen what he couldn’t; she’d floated his goggles in front of him so the blast took out their enemy, not her. If she said she could control it… He trusted her. With his life. And with hers.

Taking a deep breath, he slowly removed his red quartz shields. Fire bellowed from his eyes as it always did but this time… this time, it was checked. It was tamed, forced back, and it didn’t hurt, didn’t feel like his head would explode or he would lose control and kill anything in his line of sight… this time, when he looked at her, she wasn’t washed in red as the world had been ever since his power manifested.

She was beautiful. Brown eyes and pale skin and vivid purple-red hair, so maybe that hadn’t been his crimson-skewed vision, but he didn’t care, because she was touching him. He was touching her, and she was real under his hands, against his body, her mouth open against his, and he was home.

He didn’t notice when her grip on his hair changed, when the need in her kiss became voracious hunger, when the very air around him began to pull at him as if it would rend him to pieces. He didn’t notice, but she did.

Well, part of her did, and it wasn’t going to allow her to do this.

Not to Scott.

Not to her love.

He did not save her just so she could kill him.

The Phoenix rose from within her, uncontrollable for the first time since she met Charles, breaking its bonds and willing everything in its path to submit to it. Feed it, fill it. Jean fought with everything she had to control the power, not have it control her, but it consumed her strength along with everything else.

Until it reached out for Scott.

Protective rage flashed through her, strength spiking for him when it could not for herself. Knowing there was no other choice, Jean took the only course of action available to her. Gathering all the control she could muster, she wrenched as much of herself from the Phoenix as she could and flowed into Scott. They’d shared a connection from the moment they’d fallen in love, and she used it, pouring herself through it, one last desperate will to survive, and to take the one she loved with her.

The shock of separation nearly destroyed them all.

Jean wrapped the tattered remains of her consciousness around Scott, buffering him from the Phoenix’s pull, protecting and hiding him from what had once been the feral half of her soul. She was weak, so weak from the effort, but she used the last of her strength to push the Phoenix away, using his strength and the power she now shared with him to move him deep into the woods. Once there she consciously evoked the protection she’d unconsciously drawn upon during the flood.

Together with what was left of Jean Grey, residing deep within him, Scott curled into a ball in the shadow of the ancient forest, and disappeared. From sight, from sound, from thought…

Free.

That was the single thought the Phoenix had time for before Scott was torn from her arms and she flew back through the air, losing her grasp on both her conscious mind and her powers. Around her, mist rose, then rocks and branches and beached debris joined the unearthly dance. She faded into dreams, and the landscape around her reflected that directionless void. Memory faded, and the Phoenix slept.

When she woke, to hunger, touch, scent, to the one who freed her and the one who caged her, all hell broke loose.

A touch, too brief, caused her to reach out instinctively to clutch Logan’s arm. From there it was the work of a moment to wrap herself around him, feed from him, until something in him broke from her. An emotion deeper than the hunger she could call from him. He pulled a familiar red quartz visor from his pocket and confronted her with it, and the grief he felt at losing Scott found a howling echo within her.

It hurt.

She didn’t remember.

She didn’t want to remember.

She threw him away from her, and fled. Later, when her captor came with soft words and sharp eyes to reclaim her and chain her again, she destroyed him.

It felt good to lash out, with the immense power at her command, to feed on the fear and the awe of those around her. The wonder warred with terror in Magneto’s eyes, almost masking the everlasting tide of grief that washed through him at the loss of Charles, at her command. Magneto’s greed, his hubris, his overpowering survival instinct combined to buffer his heart against his loss, and she played with that.

Played with him.

Played with all of them.

They were nothing.

Then the man came, the one she’d seen when she’d torn down the barriers a second time. The one who’d made her remember, until she ran. This time she didn’t run, at least not right away, and he came to her. Bright eyes and brighter mind, confused and shattered but determined to reach her. He almost did.

She nearly killed Magneto for stopping him.

In the end, she should have killed them both.

It went to hell in a handbasket from the second Magneto tossed him on his ass out of the forest, knocking him out and keeping him away from Jean. Days later, Wolverine stared at the hell surrounding the pitiful remains of the X-Men, the furball at his back, as wave after wave of homicidal mutant cannon fodder came at them. Alcatraz had become apocalypse-town, all fire and smoke and the stench of burnt flesh, dead humans and mutants everywhere, mist rising as the ocean boiled, as death came upon them all.

How at it come to this? When they’d lost Scott, or earlier, when they’d lost Jean? When they’d found the part of Jean that would become the catalyst for open warfare, and lost Charles? When he’s had Jean in his arms and all he could think about was Scott?

When the kid with the angel wings showed up, Wolverine had known who he was. Storm hadn’t, he didn’t think, but Wolverine was more cautious than she was, and he’d waited until the kid was down in the dining hall and checked his stuff. Warren Worthington the Third, the reason the so-called cure was invented, the kick-off for a civil war among the mutants, an excuse for the regular folks to turn on the freaks, as always, and the only excuse Magneto needed to start World War Three. Not that Magneto needed an excuse.

He ducked a metal tumble weed barfed out by a guy the size of a truck and came up swinging, claws neatly slicing his attacker in four parts, and incidentally taking out the two bastards flanking him. The woman on the left hissed before she died and Wolverine ducked, barely escaping the toxic fumes she shot at his face with her dying breath. Behind him, the furball grunted and a chunk of torso went flying past Wolverine’s shoulder, missing him but spattering him with gore. He wrinkled his nose and took another look at the battlefield, one part of his mind sighting the pieces as if it were a huge bloody chess game, finding the weak spots instants before either exploiting them or shoring them up, depending on whether the weakness was on their side or his.

Even as he strategized and fought in split-second intervals, a tiny voice in the back of his thoughts mourned what he would have to do. What only he could do.

What he should have done when she asked him, that moment in the lab, before the light of Jean faded from her eyes leaving only the darkness of the Phoenix.

The battle went on forever, and went by in a heartbeat. Too soon, the bystanders and the soldiers and the innocent kid at the center of it all had fled; the desperate father behind the scientist had been saved by the son he’d nearly maimed; the cannon fodder had been consumed by their own goddess of destruction. Magneto was no more, rendered merely human by Wolverine’s sacrificial distraction and Hank the furball’s deadly aim with the mutation-draining drug; he’d run from the sight of the hell he’d orchestrated, and Wolverine let him go. Let him live with it. Like Wolverine would have to live with it. The furball got the kids out of the way, after Bobby took down the kid who’d once been his best friend, and Storm made damned sure nobody got between Wolverine and what he had to do.

He’d known agony in his life. Hell, most of his life, what little bit he could remember, was nothing but agony. He’d thought that nothing could be worse than a bunch of inhuman mad scientists peeling his flesh away, coating his skeleton with adamantium and plucking out his eyeballs to see if they’d grow back, all without benefit of anesthetic and while he was awake, at least until he passed out…

But nothing hurt this much. The fury in her dark eyes as she glared at him, atomizing his flesh, tearing his muscle away down to the bone only to have it regenerate so she could do it again; insanity. His, hers, he didn’t know which was worse. Knew it was crazy to keep going but knew as well that he didn’t dare stop. He had to do it, or she’d destroy everything, and in the end, she’d be destroyed as well.

Still it wasn’t his body that hurt as much as his heart. He would do this, knowing he loved her. Because he loved her.

He told her so.

Right before he killed her.

She couldn’t believe his determination, or perhaps his arrogance. They were less than nothing. He was so much more, the closest any of them came to her. Yet he was willing to do this. Stand up to her, challenge the Phoenix, fight through the disintegration of his body to protect them. His flesh healed almost fast enough to keep up with her destruction, but she knew that would not last. She slowed down in her attack, allowed him to get close enough to ask him, because she didn’t understand.

“You would die for them?” she asked, incredulous, staring into his eyes, past the pain, to the truth.

It shone from him as he answered, “No.” Teeth clenched against screams of agony, he forced out, “For you. For you!”

His words, his meaning, hit her like a shockwave. For her? He would do this, fight like this, STOP HER… for her?

In that moment of shock, far away, Jean Grey woke. Taking the opportunity, the scant moment she had, she looked out at Wolverine through the Phoenix’s eyes, and said, “Please.”

He understood.

The pain ripped through her abdomen, up and through her heart, as his claws tore her life from her. The Phoenix screamed back, but it was too late, and Jean faded back away into darkness.

The last sensation the Phoenix carried with her was the strength of his arms as they wrapped around her, the salty sting of his tears on her lips, and the anguish in his voice as he cried out.

Then Jean was gone, and the Phoenix was no more.

Deep in the woods, a melding completed, one that began weeks before. The last tendrils of Jean Grey settled into Scott Summers, her power rewriting his DNA effortlessly, layering what was left of her alongside his thoughts, his emotions, not overtaking who he was, but subsuming who she had been into the man who had been her anchor.

Physical changes were few but significant: hair that had been sable brown now showed streaks of subtle crimson, flashing in the sun but hidden in the shadow; eyes once hidden by special lenses to harness their destructive power now opened, bared, startling blue irises circling pupils of fire-red. Other changes, less discernible, flowed through his brain, wakening places that had been dark, whispering with her voice, listening to the mind-voices of others. Shields flowed around him, keeping him from insanity but allowing him to use the gifts he’d been given as effortlessly as she had. His fingers twitched, and the trees around him rustled as their limbs reacted to his grasp, manipulated as easily as the air in his hands.

Slowly, he woke. He stretched, shook the fuzziness out of his thoughts, the stiffness out of his muscles from lying so long in the damp and the cold. A thought, a look, and a small fire burst in response to a concentrated beam from his eyes. He curled next to it and warmed his body, eyes scanning the woods, mind sorting through memories, his and hers, theirs now.

The last thing he remembered was kissing her. The last thing she remembered was dying. Scott examined both memories closely, and analyzed what he saw in both.

She’d wanted, no, needed to die. Logan had killed her, had taken agonizing torture from her in order to get close enough to do it, had cried as he’d done it. She thanked him for it.

Scott threw up in the bushes, wiped his mouth with his hand and his hand on the damp grass, then returned to huddle next to the fire.

She’d nearly killed him. She’d kissed him and nearly killed him.

I’m sorry.

The voice whispered through his mind and his head shot up, staring suspiciously into the woods for a moment before reality caught up to him. She wasn’t out there, trying to reach him.

She was inside him. Part of him.

He shook his head hard. There was no reason for her to apologize. She’d saved him, after all, sacrificed herself to keep him from dying.

I love you.

The warmth slid through him, feeling as if it came from his bones, and he smiled.

He loved her, too.

Something settled in him, then, a last rustle of uneasy echo that hadn’t known if it was wanted, at his acceptance. His love. Feeling like his skin fit him again, for the first time since she’d held back the flood for them all to escape so long ago, Scott waved a hand to quench the fire and stood to begin the long journey home.

Three hours walk from the forest he found a small diner. From the number of trucks in the parking lot, it was a stopover for the long haulers. He walked in and found a seat in the corner.

Several of the men gave him suspicious looks. He supposed, with his now-tangled beard and wild hair, his leather jacket and dirt-stained jeans, he shouldn’t be surprised. A suggestion from Jean, an image, not words, and he smiled. Sweeping the dining room with a glance, he subtly washed the suspicion from their minds. Nothing to see here, nothing unusual, just another hungry traveler looking for some hot coffee and good food. No one of note. As if choreographed, everyone in the room save the waitress looked back to their meals, his intrusion forgotten. The waitress smiled vaguely at him, or perhaps past him, and took his order without comment.

Half an hour later, after eggs and ham and toast and coffee and the waitress conveniently forgetting to give him a bill, Scott walked out the door and stood in the shade by the corner. As drivers wandered in and out he dipped gently into their minds until he found the one he wanted. A man on an overnighter to New York state, ending up at a warehouse not far from the school. He fell into step with the man and smiled over at him.

“You’d like a passenger to talk to, keep you company on your trip.”

The man nodded, smiling back. “Name’s Hank. Nice to meet you.”

Scott grinned, the shadow of Jean in the curve of his lips. “Nice to meet you, too, Hank. Thanks for the ride.”

Seven hours, a picnic lunch in the cab as they drove, and a nice long nap later, Scott was nearly home.

It wasn’t until he’d left the loading dock and cut cross country toward the school that the second thoughts hit.

Logan thought they were dead. Scott slowed as he reached the woods surrounding the school. Taking care not to trip any of the perimeter sensors he’d helped set, he settled on a rock beneath the trees and took stock of his situation. It was nearly nightfall. After dark, he’d enter the grounds. Check things out. See how Logan was doing. Talk to Charles.

A shock of grief and guilt arrowed through him. He didn’t understand what it meant, so he did his best to put it aside until or unless the reasons for it became clear. Instead he concentrated on what he needed to do next.

He didn’t know what the situation was. Magneto and his helpers were on the loose. There’d been a battle, and from what he could glean from Jean’s memories, it was a nasty one. Very few of the X-Men were there. Anything could be going on at the school, from a hostage situation to normal school hours to it being taken over by anti-mutant militants. Scott would use every ounce of strategy Charles had ever taught him, his own fighting skill and strong survival instincts, and Jean’s gift of the ability to reach out and mentally map an area before he took one step toward the school.

The gradually darkening landscape finally gave him enough cover so slip from the trees toward the grounds. Creating a bubble in the space around him, he moved undetected through the sensor net and down through the gardens. Cautiously, he knelt behind a marble planter and reached out with his mind.

Grief, shock, loss, anger, confusion, relief, distress… the cacophony of mind-voices and emotions left him curled in a ball, hanging on to the marble with both hands, trying not to pass out. Time passed, he didn’t know how long, before he came to himself enough to recognize that the light he was staring at was the flame of an eternal fire, set into the plinth in front of a raised marker. Engraved on the front of the marker was a name, and carved above it was the frieze of a face he knew all too well.

Charles was dead.

This monument… it was for Charles.

A cry of grief and guilt rose up in him, and he shoved his fist against his mouth, biting on his fingers to keep it in.

Jean knew. She didn’t know everything, but she knew that his death was somehow her fault. Scott shook his head, swallowing the cry with a growl, shouting down the voice inside his head. His thoughts calmed as he chanted silently, over and over, not you. Not you. Her. Not you. You saved me. You would have saved him. You would never hurt him.

It struck him that he was more than a little unstable. If the situation here was settled, if no one was in danger, then he needed to get away for awhile. Let the memories that fought for dominance in his mind calm down. Get used to this new voice inside him. He dashed away tears he hadn’t been aware of shedding and looked off to the side, away from the flame.

Only to be met with two smaller, somber monuments. One with his name on it… one with Jean’s.

He bit his lip against the insane urge to laugh out loud, and shifted until he was sitting next to the planter, leaning against it. Closing his eyes, clearing his mind, he reached out, gently ghosting over the minds within the mansion, seeking for more out on the grounds. They were deserted except for him, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t quite ready for people yet. Wasn’t up to explanations, or the burden of others’ expectations, or dealing with their disbelief. Was barely able to hold back the urge to run and keep running, to hole up and hide until he could handle it, if that day ever came.

Concentrating on the task at hand, he returned once more to discerning the situation within the mansion. The absence of Charles was a gaping hole in the mental fabric Jean’s memory assured him should be there, but he worked past that. There was Ororo, high up on the East widow’s walk, staring up into the sky. Her mind felt blank, as if the thoughts there were laden down with frost. Wounded, but determined to continue. Strength, desolation, love. Scott backed out and kept looking.

Most of the children were sleeping, but some were awake. Marie, subtly wrong, the hazy shimmer of her power muted nearly to invisibility but not quite destroyed. He felt despair, uselessness, but no danger. Close to her, the cool regret of Bobby, affection and disappointment wound together. Scott kept skimming through the rooms, feeling Kurt, soothing himself with prayer, Kitty, homesick and lost, one he recognized as Hank, saying goodbye? Scott found new minds that somehow felt familiar, though Jean’s memories could give no more than hints of who they might be.

There, down in the Danger Room, he found Logan. The maelstrom of anger and pain he discovered nearly knocked him unconscious and he quickly withdrew. More guilt, more grief, denial buried under agony leavened by fledgling acceptance; Scott wasn’t the only one who needed time.

He found no immediate danger. No threat to his home or any of its inhabitants. Those inside didn’t need him, not yet, not as he was now… not until he had time to figure out who he was and not burden them with that, as well.

Rising from the ground he left as silently as he’d come.

The week after hell happened went by fast. Wolverine watched Ororo take up the slack from Charles the way she had when Scott went AWOL, and ten days after the whole mess ended the kids who’d left had all come back. The hallways of the mansion rang with voices, subdued at first but rapidly returning to normal. Kids were resilient. Kids were tough.

Hell of a lot tougher than adults, most of the time.

He’d been at loose ends since he’d woke up in the infirmary after killing Jean, the furball standing on one side of the cot and Ororo on the other, both staring down at him like he was back in the lab. Instincts rushed up but he beat them back; these were allies, even friends, not enemies to slice and dice. He’d been fine, physically at least, by lunchtime. He’d wandered around the house, looked in on the kids that were there, poked his head in the security room and stared at the monitors for awhile, finally got completely bored and went to the Danger Room to work out.

Nine hours of kicking ass and a good burn in his muscles later, he took a shower, fell in bed, and slept a good half hour before the nightmares woke him up.

After that, he’d contented himself with prowling over the grounds, checking out security, scanning the news feeds, training any kid who stopped moving long enough to get roped into it, and avoiding Storm, who kept wanting to ‘talk.’ Talking didn’t bring back the dead, and regrets were private things he didn’t share with anybody, so it was better he stayed away from her.

On the second day, he noticed some weird blank-outs in the security grid, but they were irregular and untraceable. He made it his pet project so he could look busy any time she found him, but after four days he still hadn’t figured out what was going on. It gave his brain a puzzle to chew on. That was good. That kept his mind occupied, and the work-outs, the perimeter checks, and long runs in the woods kept his body occupied.

The Tuesday after the kids came back he wandered into Charles’ study and glanced at the television. The furball had left a few days before, something about the president, not that Wolverine had listened too closely. He kept zoning out; something was bugging him, but he couldn’t pin it down, and it was playing hell with his concentration. Last night at dinner Kitty’d whined about gremlins stealing food from the kitchen, so it wasn’t like he was the only one who was a little nuts lately.

Noise from the television caught his attention and he looked over at it. There was a news conference, looked like it was live, and a familiar hairy blue figure stepped forward. The text line at the bottom of the screen announced Henry McCoy as the new UN ambassador from the US, for both mutants and humans. Wolverine gave a lopsided grin.

“Way to go, furball,” he said softly. Charles would be proud.

Hank started answering questions and Wolverine felt himself begin to drift again. There was something there… just on the edge of his senses, just out of sight, just out of reach…

Jogging down the pathway from the French doors toward the woods, he gave into his instincts and followed where they led. There was a hint. A scent. Familiar, but strange, too, off, but right, in a way he couldn’t describe. Deeper into the woods he went, until he saw something he never expected to see, and stumbled over his own feet.

What he found nearly gave him a heart attack, and made him severely doubt his sanity.

Again.

It took a few days, hiding in the woods, sneaking into the mansion to steal food then fading back out into the trees, shaving and washing in the stream, using small fires in rock pits hidden in the trees at night to stay warm, thinking, sorting, accepting, believing… but Scott had finally come to grips with who he now was. Jean’s whisper was as much a part of him as the color of his eyes; their memories were his memory. Maybe it was a little schizophrenic, but it was who he’d become, and it felt oddly right. Jean fit into his skin with him, her gifts and his were integrated into his mind until he could use them all without hesitation; he no longer flinched when one of her memories surfaced, but embraced it. Embraced her.

Her emotions twined with his, as well, and found common ground. Some was expected, such as their grief at Charles’ death and their sense of responsibility for the school that was urging them to heal and go home, soon. Some was unexpected. Scott had known that Jean wanted Logan; she hadn’t known Scott had wanted him, too.

Heck, Scott hadn’t known that. Not consciously.

A few days into his retreat, he’d watched from a distance as Logan ran a few of the kids through an obstacle course on the grounds below his hiding place. The sun shone on Logan’s skin, making the sweat glisten, and Scott found himself licking his lips, wondering what it tasted like. For a moment, he’d been sure that was an errant thought of Jean’s. Until he realized there was no trace of her in it.

Only himself. Only his own hunger. Stripped of the façade he’d held before it, since there was no jealousy left, no Jean to fight over, no reason to pretend any more that it was hostility. A giggle wound through his mind. He grinned despite himself and watched appreciatively as Logan stripped down to his jeans and boots, muscles playing under his skin as he threw himself into the challenge of the obstacle course. Yeah, Jean liked watching Logan. And so did Scott.

That night, curled at the base of an old oak, he stared at the stars for a long time before he fell asleep. And when he dreamed, he dreamed of skin. Sweat. Strength.

Jean.

Logan.

He woke up hard, and hungry, and not for food.

Two days later when Logan came looking, Scott let himself be found.

Logan stopped running so fast he tripped himself up and would have fallen if Scott hadn’t reached out and caught him. Stunned dark eyes stared at him like he was a ghost, and Scott supposed for Logan it must seem as if he was. He opened his mouth to say something, not sure what, when Logan shook off his shock and grabbed him up in a bear hug.

“You’re not dead!” Logan yelped, and Scott couldn’t help but laugh. Logan thrust him out at arm’s length, still holding on to him, and glared at him. Before Scott could say anything, the glare morphed into another look of shock. “Your eyes,” Logan muttered, staring at him intently. “You have blue eyes.”

Giving up on any sort of coherent explanation for the moment, following his instincts, Scott kept one arm around Logan and freed his other hand Then he threaded his fingers through Logan’s hair and pulled his head forward. “Good to see you, too, Logan,” he said right before he kissed him.

The response he got reassured him he wouldn’t have to worry about getting slugged. Logan wrapped his arms around Scott’s middle and hugged him close again, returning the kiss with every bit as much hunger as Scott poured into it. When they finally broke for air, Logan leaned back, not much, but far enough to take a good look at Scott. Once he got past the shock of Scott’s eyes, he stared up at his hair. He reached up and tugged a lock down in front of Scott’s face, a finger tracing the deep red streaking the brown. When he met Scott’s gaze again there was a trace of fear in his eyes.

Scott reached out and sifted through the surface emotions crowding Logan’s mind. Along with the fear was a hint of wonder, laced with pain and disbelief. Scott sighed and brought a hand up to catch Logan’s, giving it a reassuring squeeze before letting go and pushing his hair back out of his face.

“It’s not the Phoenix,” he told Logan softly. The fear receded, but the pain clenched harder. Scott traced the corner of Logan’s mouth with a fingertip and shook his head. “What remains of Jean is now a part of me. She saved me.”

A breeze flickered around them, rustling their hair, tugging at their clothes, and Scott chuckled. Logan’s eyes widened and Scott knew he’d heard Jean laugh, just as Scott had. “Ah, to hell with it. There’s time for talking later,” Scott declared, “right now I can think of much better things to do with you.” Then he kissed Logan again.

The laughter on the breeze swept through them, lightening their movements as they stripped one another. There was no hesitation, very little fumbling, although Scott had to laugh at the hidden buckles on Logan’s leather jacket, and Logan gave an apolgetic rumble when he tugged too hard and ripped Scott’s shirt in two pieces getting it off him. There were few words between them, understandable as such, but sounds filled the air, need and contentment and a mingling cry of satisfaction at the end.

They lay tangled together in the jumbled bed of their discarded clothing, Scott curled around Logan, eyes closed as he simply breathed. Logan had one hand in his hair, running his other hand up and down the length of Scott’s back. The air felt good on their overheated skin. Sunlight and shade from the branches above them painted them in alternating patches of dark and light. For both of them, for the first time in a long time, there was peace.

Wolverine wasn’t what would happen next. As fucked up and twisted and incredible as this was, holding Scott, somehow feeling Scott and Jean both, he couldn’t help but feel happy. All the things that never could have happened… had.

And would.

He’d make sure of it.

In the back of his mind, Jean giggled. Against the side of his neck, he felt Scott’s lips turn up in a grin.

Okay, then. THEY would make sure of it.

It was weird, but it was them.

He’d take it.

END