X-Men(tm) The Last Stand

by Chris Claremont

  Nobody had to ask where Wolverine had gone. The only questions were what he’d do when he found her, and whether or not he’d come back.

  Ororo strode to a space on the grass just in front of Xavier’s stone, and took a moment to compose herself—and in that moment she inadvertently allowed all present to see and understand why during her youth in Africa she’d been considered a goddess.

  “We live in an age of darkness,” she began. “A world of fear and anger, hatred and intolerance.”

  Messages of sympathy had come, not only from President Cockrum but from his predecessor, who’d laid the groundwork for all the advances in mutant-sapien relations since. A discreet video feed had been established that allowed these proceedings to be viewed from the Oval Office.

  David Cockrum sat at his desk, his wife of many years at his side. He was idly sketching—which is what he did when he was stressed, to center his thoughts and ease his mind—a rough drawing of Xavier as he knew him best, from younger, happier days. No staff were present, as this was a private moment; and presidents never liked anyone outside of closest family to see them cry.

  “For most of us,” Ororo said, “this is the way things are and always will be. Some maintain it is hardwired into so-called human nature. But in every age there are those who fight against it.”

  The news had been a body blow. None of the students had needed to be told that the professor was gone. They’d felt his passing the moment it happened—in class, in dorm rooms; everywhere on the great, sprawling campus—as shocking and undeniable as a blow to the gut. And yet—though the initial reaction of many was tears—discussion after the fact revealed that the predominant emotion, what they’d actually felt from Xavier, wasn’t pain or anger or sadness. Quite the opposite: they’d been aware of a fierce hunger to see what lay over the next horizon, an eagerness to embark on this wonderful new adventure. They felt a sense of grace and peace—and, strangest of all, they felt joy.

  “Moses, who led his people out of slavery but never reached the Promised Land himself. Abraham Lincoln, who saved the Union and freed the slaves, but never lived to see his country at peace. Franklin Roosevelt, who led America through the Great Depression and the Second World War, yet died before the final victory. John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, struck down cruelly before their time, their promise unfulfilled.”

  “Martin Luther King Jr. who fought for equal rights but was struck down by an assassin’s bullet.”

  Logan stood just inside the treeline, downwind so he couldn’t be scented. He didn’t have a great view, he didn’t really want one, but he heard every word of what Ororo had to say.

  “It wasn’t something they asked to do. They were chosen. And he was chosen, too.”

  She looked up, and her eyes found his at once, as though she’d known precisely where to look for him. The pain in her eyes mirrored his, only more so—and Logan knew she mourned not only the friends she had lost, but feared as well for those about to follow.

  He understood, completely, but turned away regardless.

  “Charles Xavier was born into a world divided. A world he tried to heal. It was a mission he never saw accomplished.”

  Rogue sat at the end of the front row, Bobby beside her, Kitty beside him. None were shy about their tears. Seeking comfort, Rogue reached for Bobby’s hand, her eyes closing ever so slightly in frustration and greater sadness at the necessity of being able to touch him only through a glove. Some instinct, perhaps a minimal shift in the way he sat on his chair, prompted a sideways glance and she caught her lower lip between her teeth at the realization that he and Kitty were holding hands as well. Only, the other girl’s hands were bare. None of them noticed Peter Rasputin, sitting behind Bobby, with eyes only for Kitty. They’d been an item, once, and after they’d broken up, she’d spent a sabbatical year abroad getting over it. Problem was, he hadn’t.

  “But Xavier’s teachings live on with us, his students. Wherever we may go, we must carry on his vision. The vision of a world united.”

  That was it. One by one, led by Rogue—whose idea this was—each of them walked to the cenotaph for a moment alone, to say their own farewells, and leave a long-stemmed rose at its base.

  That night, some of them still found it impossible to sleep. Bobby Drake tossed and turned and fretted for what seemed like forever—but turned out to be less than an hour on the clock—before deciding to raid the kitchen for some soda and ice cream.

  Padding down the silent halls, he was caught by a low cooing from Kitty’s room, a note of such poignant beauty it stopped him in his tracks. He knew at once what it was, being one of the few who’d actually been introduced to Kitty’s dragon. He eased open the door after a warning knock. Bobby had no interest in Lockheed, perched watchfully up in the ceiling shadows, only in the slim, brown-haired, brown-eyed figure slumped cross-legged on the bed.

  She waved her hands helplessly when she saw him, her eyes sunken and red from crying. She’d given up on tissues after the second box—they were discared in piles all over the bed and carpet—and now had a bath towel draped across her lap.

  Kitty muttered something incredibly rude, indicating her eyes and calling them “waterworks.” Bobby knew that she didn’t like being blindsided by feelings; taking her cue from her favorite teachers, Ororo and Logan, she much preferred control.

  She wiped away her tears with her fingers, then the heel of her hand, then the towel. Didn’t do much good—they just kept coming. He’d never seen her look helpless before and briefly considered making a joke, but then thought better of it. Instead, he tried to offer comfort.

  “It’s okay, Kitty,” he told her. “It’s okay.”

  She muttered something even more incredibly rude.

  Then, a touch more calmly, she responded, “Xavier came to my house. He was the one who convinced me to come to this school.”

  “Me, too.” He sat beside her, gave her a guy-hug across the shoulder. She slumped bonelessly against him and for a frantic instant made him think she’d actually phased into his body. When it had passed, he said, “We’re all feeling the same.”

  She turned to him, her voice soft as she shook her head.

  “No, Bobby, we’re not. You have Rogue. I have…”

  She trailed off into silence. He wanted to see her face but she was looking toward the window.

  “I just…I miss home,” she said. She was from a small town outside Chicago, called Deerfield. “First snow, long winters, even the wind off Lake Michigan.”

  “Hey,” Bobby said a little defensively, “we get snow around here.”

  She gave him a wry look, as though to suggest he made it all himself—which he sometimes did, in fact, when they wanted to go sledding down Suicide Leap.

  “It’s not exactly the same,” she noted. He actually thought it was better, but kept the sentiment to himself.

  “What’s so different?” he asked, meaning about home.

  She shrugged, her voice tired. “Well, for starters, no Mansion, no cool uniforms, no supersonic jet.”

  “Yeah, I guess there’s that.”

  “Don’t you miss it, sometimes? Normal life?”

  “What do you mean by ‘normal,’ Kit-Kat?”

  That got him a sour look. She wasn’t thrilled with the nickname, which is why he used it now and then to bust her chops. Usually worked great for knocking her out of a funk.

  She gave his question due and proper consideration, then said, “I wish I knew.”

  Suddenly, he found himself acutely conscious of how good she looked, still very much a work in progress but showing all the signs of growing into a major and lasting beauty once she emerged from adolescence. Her lips were very close, open just enough, her eyes half-lidded, to suggest that any advance would not be summarily rejected.

  He decided on discretion and indicated her skates, still in the corner where she’d dropped them, many months ago.

  “C’mon, girl. Up you get, on your feet, you’re with me!”
r />   “It’s after curfew, Bright Eyes. Storm told everyone to stay in their rooms.”

  He gave her a look, saying with his eyes and a twist of his mouth, What, you never broke a rule?

  Aloud, he assured her, “Don’t worry, we won’t get caught.” Then, with a soft and charming smile, “You can walk through walls, you know.”

  Walk through walls and, it turned out, on air itself, which unnerved Bobby a tad as she led him down an invisible ramp from her upper-floor room to the ground. Properly phased, her body had no coherent mass, but she could generate motion—very much like swimming. Suspending herself within a greater volume clearly worked the same whether applied to a solid, a liquid, or a gas.

  Grateful to be back on terra firma, he led her to the ornamental pond out back. The swimming pool was too obvious for their purposes—too much chance of being caught. Here, hidden amidst the hedges, they were more secure. Both of them felt a measure of comfort to be under the watchful gaze of Xavier, even if it was only a representation of him in profile upon a pillar of stone.

  “This place can be home, too,” Bobby told her, his words reminding Kitty that he hadn’t been back to Boston since the Stryker incident. No letters or calls from his folks, and everything he sent to them was returned unopened.

  He touched the water, and just like that it began to crystallize.

  Bobby held up her skates and in the second or so it took for her to pluck them from his grasp, the pond was solid ice, the air chill enough to prompt a cloud with every breath.

  “I’m not very good,” she warned, taking to the ice. In fact, she considered herself a major klutz.

  Bobby didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to—she’d seen him skate. He was beyond gold in skill, he was platinum.

  Tonight, though, he showed none of that grace and flamboyance. Instead he made plain that tonight was all about her, and she loved him for it. They skated around the little pond, which actually didn’t leave much room to be fancy, and they talked. As time gradually passed, the sorrow began to give way just a little. They weren’t up for laughter yet, but the ache inside wasn’t quite as bad.

  She whooped in alarm as he twirled behind her, hands clasping her waist—it was all she could do to keep from phasing, her reflexive response to any such surprise—pulling her up and around in a spin. She knew what was supposed to come next. The moment her blades made contact, she would allow momentum to pull her through a twist of her own and then grasp his outstretched hand, while still spinning, so that she’d end up with her arm fully extended. It was a maneuver pulled from ballroom dancing, and if she were wearing shoes she could manage it quite nicely.

  But she didn’t even make it through the first rotation. She snagged her toe on his, thrust out a leg clumsily to keep from pitching flat on her face, felt her balance go all to hell, and crashed against Bobby, sensing him start to go too—but neither fell.

  He caught her strongly and just like that she was cradled in his arms, their bodies tangled tightly together. He was grinning, and she smiled back. It felt good.

  “Thank you, Bobby,” she said, realizing their eyes had been locked a half-beat too long.

  As he nodded agreement, she craned her head up to kiss him on the cheek. Kitty liked the way he smelled and let the contact linger longer than it should have, same as with their eyes. She didn’t want the moment to pass.

  Upstairs, another student who couldn’t sleep saw their heads move together. From Rogue’s angle, it looked like Bobby and Kitty were kissing on the lips. What was for them a brief but welcome interlude of peace and reprieve from the misery of recent days, was for her a spike through the heart, in its own way far worse than Xavier’s passing.

  Bobby was the one who pulled back, but Kitty didn’t press. They were both conflicted.

  “I’m sorry,” Kitty began.

  “No, no, no,” Bobby interrupted, “I just…”

  Both voices trailed off.

  “Yeah, I know. Me, too.”

  She butted his shoulder very slightly with hers, a “buddy” thing. “C’mon, popsicle, we should get back inside.”

  Logan paused a beat by the window of his room, taking a breath to catalogue the comings and goings outside. His room was usually a mess, the floor strewn almost to overflowing with empty beer cans. It would have been odd that Xavier had never mentioned it, except Logan figured he’d known the reason why. In the dark, it was virtually impossible to find your way across the floor without disturbing them, and even the slightest noise was all the alarm Wolverine needed. Better by far than the flocks of geese that guarded ancient Rome. Today, though, he’d swept it clean, and taken care to polish the floor until it glowed.

  Because this time, he really didn’t believe he’d be coming back.

  “Where are you going?” Ororo demanded from the doorway. He made a face. So much for his clean getaway.

  “Where do you think?” he replied, slipping on his jacket.

  “She’s gone, Logan. She’s not coming back.” And he knew she wasn’t talking about Jean’s physical departure with Magneto.

  He shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

  He slung his backpack over a shoulder but she blocked the doorway. “No,” she told him, making it an order. He quirked an eyebrow, suggesting that she not take this any further. Her eyes had adopted a blue cast that told him she was already drawing on her power; if it came to a tussle between them, it could get ugly.

  “Charles was like a father to her,” she said. “And she killed him.” He could tell it was difficult for her to believe it, even as she said the words, but at the same time it was impossible for her to forgive.

  “That wasn’t Jean,” Logan maintained stubbornly, without a shred of rational evidence to back it up. “The Jean I…” briefest of pauses, to find a stand-in for the word he wanted to say, love, “…know is still in there. I mean to reach her, to find a way to bring her home.”

  “You truly believe that?”

  He nodded tersely. “I have to.”

  He advanced a step, but she stood her ground. The air around them grew charged enough to raise the hackles on his neck.

  “Why?” Ororo cried out, and then, with even more intensity, “Why? Why can’t you accept the truth?”

  “Not my truth, ’Ro.”

  “Damn it, Logan, why can’t you let her go?”

  “Because…” he said, and found himself completely at a loss for words. “Because…”

  Her shoulders slumped and the air between them grew calm. She looked at him with more sorrow and sympathy than he’d ever seen in another’s eyes—at least directed at him.

  “Because you love her.”

  He nodded.

  “Logan,” Ororo told him, “Jean made her choice.” He started to protest but she stopped him by laying her fingertips across his lips, a gesture that seemed to him very much a caress. It came to him in that instant that he wasn’t the only one held by the grip of primal emotions. “It’s time to make ours,” she said. “If you’re with us, then make sure you’re with us.”

  She shifted her grip, sliding her hand down from his lips to cup his jaw in a way both tender and achingly intimate, revealing far more of herself with these few small movements than she’d done in all the time he’d known her.

  “I’ve now lost two of my oldest friends, and the only father I’ve ever really known. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  With that, she left him.

  Magneto found Jean standing on the edge of forever. An escarpment rose behind the clearing where the mutants he’d been gathering had made their camp, beneath a cliff as tall as a skyscraper. It looked as if nature had formed this little valley just like a quarry, cleaving the rocks in disconcertingly straight lines.

  Jean was balanced right on the edge, staring out across the sky in a way that made him think she was looking straight through the atmosphere at the very stars themselves. And then the thought came to him that she might actually see those stars in ways unav
ailable to the finest telescopes on Earth. He also saw as he approached that she was standing as much on open air as on the rock itself, and he couldn’t help but be impressed.

  The more he saw and learned about her, the less he truly knew.

  “Do you remember,” he began, and she sent the ghostly projection of her reply skittering across the surface of his thoughts before he even completed the sentence: Everything.

  “…When we first met? Do you know what I saw when I looked at you?”

  “A scared little girl,” she replied aloud, out of courtesy.

  “I saw the next step in evolution.” Again, she permitted him a sense of her thoughts, which this time consisted of a round of quiet laughter, as she responded to a joke he didn’t get. “What Charles and I dreamt of finding.”

  Words came this time—a warning: Be careful what you wish for.

  He ignored her thoughts, and focused on the woman: “And I thought to myself, why would Charles want to turn this god into a mortal?”

  “I am mortal.”

  He raised a piece of metal, shaking his head. “I can manipulate the metal in this scrap of iron. But you can do anything!”