Over The Hills And Far Away
by Alicia McKenzie
DISCLAIMER: Characters are Marvel's, no permission, no money, don't sue.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Kaylee, Mitai, queenB and Lynxie for betareading. Warning: Possibly sad things ahead.....
March 14th, 2000.
I've never liked cliches. The hooker with a heart of gold. The suave and charming secret agent with a taste for martinis. The conquering hero who kills the bad guy, gets the girl, and then rides off into the sunset.
I always wondered what happened to him after the credits rolled. Whether he was still there on the blank screen, not noticing the audience leaving the theatre, not even knowing that the lights have come up. Still there, blind in the shadows, lost, trying futilely to find the way out. . .
I've always liked metaphors. Can you tell? You can hide whole levels of meaning inside them. Secrets you can't hold inside yourself any longer but that you don't dare tell anyone.
Never be direct when you can beat around the hedge.
There's a strange movie on TV. A kid's movie, with lots of those weird little puppets, whatever they're called. About this girl trying to find her way through a labyrinth to the center, to the castle where her baby brother's being held by the Goblin King.
Funny thing. It's not the girl, or the Goblin King, that's the center of the story. It's the labyrinth itself. It's something more, something bigger than both of them. Larger than life, changing every time you blink. Frightening and somehow beautiful at the same time.
Endings are small things. Win or lose, they happen, and then they're done. It's the quest that encompasses your whole world, that swallows you whole. Just like the labyrinth in this flonqing movie.
I wonder if she'll get to the center or not. I suppose I'll leave it on. I feel like I need a little noise. . .the hotel room's awfully quiet.
So quiet. Isn't this what I wanted, though. . .why I'm here?
I could have stayed at the mansion. Watched Hank drive himself into the ground trying to find a cure that doesn't exit. . .watched Scott and Jean struggle to do the whole strong and supportive thing.
And the kids. . .maybe that's why I left, in the end. I didn't want them to see me like this.
And Dom. . .
Life's not fair. Forget how many times I said that, until I finally decided the atmosphere at the mansion was getting too stifling for my tastes.
Then again, there's something almost biblical about it, isn't there? Moses dying at the gates of the Promised Land.
Me, dying from the flonqing T-O virus just when I thought I was going to get to see my promised land. McCoy thinks it's something that the old bastard encoded into the virus before he infected me with it, something that he could trigger to make sure I didn't outlive him by long.
I wonder why he didn't do it two thousand years from now. No chance, maybe. Or maybe he didn't realize it was me in time. . .
All those infinite possibilities. I can see them now, stretching out in front of me. It's like Apocalypse was some monstrous dam, squatting there in the middle of the timestream, warping everything around him.
But now the dam's broken, and the river's flowing free. Wild and beautiful and free. . .
I got to see that, at least. Maybe that's reward enough.
I don't know why I started keeping this diary. There's something so archaic about recording your thoughts on paper. . .yet something so cathartic, as well.
I wonder how many more entries I'll make.
I've been here for a week, now. Ordering in room service, taking ice-cold showers every couple of hours. It helps a little. Numbs the pain, just a bit. . .but it's getting harder and harder to move around. I'm lying on the bed right now, writing this and half-watching the television. My vision keeps blurring. . .it's getting worse, too.
I've been 'encouraging' the cleaning staff to leave fresh sheets and all outside the door. I don't really feel like dealing with any well-meaning attempts to have me taken to a hospital. I left the mansion to get away from being poked and prodded and pitied. . .
I just want it to be over. To close my eyes. . .maybe even tonight. . .and not wake up. I've lived with pain all my life, and it's just gotten steadily worse, these last few weeks.
I'm tired. I crossed the finish line, and now I want to rest. Maybe THAT'S why I left. They couldn't see that. They kept telling me to fight, to hold on. . .
I've held two thousand years of history on my shoulders for most of my life. It's out of my hands, at last.
I. . .just wish I'd said goodbye.
***
"The key. Now."
The manager was tempted to tell the slim, harmless-looking guy with the red glasses to shove it where the sun didn't shine, since more diplomatic references to calling the local authorities had failed. The man started out pleasant enough, asking about what kind of room were available, but as soon as he'd gotten a look at the register, any pretence of signing in had gone by the wayside, and he'd started demanding the key to one of their OCCUPIED rooms.
But even as he opened his mouth to do it, he took a bit of a closer look and suddenly wasn't so sure just how harmless the stranger really was. "Sir," he said almost defensively. "We are not in the habit of. . ."
"Mr. Summers is a family member who may be in need of medical attention." The man's mouth twisted, his expression suddenly so bitterly anguished that the manager flinched. "Please. I know that this wasn't the right way to go about it, but. . ." He pulled out his wallet, showing the manager his driver's license. The name on it was indeed Scott Summers, and the picture matched, but still. . .
The manager opened his mouth to deliver another polite refusal, but hesitated, giving this other Mr. Summers a measuring look, assessing the level of anxiety he was displaying. If there truly was a medical emergency. . .
"Let me try buzzing the room, first," he hedged, and picked up the phone. It rang five times before there was an answer.
"Yes?" The voice on the other end was hoarse, very deep but curiously weak. "What?"
"I'm sorry to bother you, sir," the manager said apologetically, even as he began to worry that there was a problem. The hotel certainly didn't need the negative publicity! "But I was somewhat concerned for your welfare. There's a Mr. Scott Summers here at the desk, and he believes. . ."
"Tell him he can come up." The distinct click of the phone being hung up ended the conversation quite definitively.
The manager looked back at the other Mr. Summers with an uncertain smile. "Room three-fifteen. . .apparently you're welcome to come up, sir." Regaining his composure, he donned a more professional expression. "I'm relieved that there's no emergency, but perhaps the next time these circumstances arise, you might try to be slightly more diplomatic. . ."
"No emergency," Mr. Summers murmured in a low voice, his expression twisting again. He turned and headed for the elevator without another world.
The manager muttered darkly to himself and went back to to his office. He'd left the day's crossword half-finished.
***
Scott hesitated, then reached out his hand to knock on the door. The mechanism clicked, and it swung open of its own accord. "Nathan?" he called tentatively, part of him not wanting to step through the door, not wanting to see. . .
#You shouldn't have come.# The voice in his mind was an exhausted whisper, no more than that. Even the words seemed slurred. #Should've. . .just left it alone.#
Scott set his jaw and walked in, closing the door behind him. "Left it alone?" he demanded hoarsely, his initial relief at hearing Nate answer him being swiftly replaced by indignation. "And just exactly how the HELL was I supposed to do that?"
The man on the bed managed a ghost of the old sardonic smile as Scott came over and sat down beside him. "Selective memory," Nathan rasped, swallowing painfully. "Should try it sometime. Works wonders."
Scott reached out and checked his son's pulse. It was racing, terrifyingly fast, and his skin was blazing hot to the touch. "I'll have to take your word for it."
"Whatever you like."
"Stop trying to change the subject."
The T-O was taking a different, more subtle means of attack. *Like it did the last time,* Nathan had said, very calmly, when Hank had diagnosed the problem. After Farouk, he had meant. Scott's jaw tightened. *Another time I wasn't there for him. . .*
No dramatic physiological changes. No outward signs, except the fever, and the waves of pain so intense that Jean and the other telepaths had had to keep their shields at full just to be in the same room with him.
Nothing they could see, that they could even allow themselves the illusion of fighting. Just the virus running rampant in his bloodstream, eating away at him from the inside as his body shut down under the assault.
The progression was inexorable, and appallingly quick. Two weeks ago, Nathan had collapsed after a Danger Room session. Only two weeks. . .
"The look on your face. . .you'd think someone died," Nathan whispered, that faint smile flickering and dying at Scott's lack of reaction. "Supposed to be a. . .joke, Scott."
"It's not funny," Scott said tautly. "I'm taking you home, Nate. Are you strong enough to help us avoid any attention getting out of here, or should we wait for Jean?"
Nathan blinked at him for a moment, and then turned his head to stare at the opposite wall, so slowly, as if even the slightest movement hurt. He was ghastly pale, his face about the color of the pillowcase. "I don't want to go back," he said, very softly. "Why do you think I left?"
Scott caught himself, just before the harsh reply part of him so badly wanted to make escaped. "I don't know why," he said, his voice sounding a little too cold even to him. "You didn't exactly leave a note."
He'd just. . .vanished. Burning up with fever, in constant pain, he'd managed not only to get out of the mansion, but out of Westchester County entirely. They'd been looking for him ever since, but even sick, he'd managed to cover his tracks almost totally. Scott would have been been a little impressed if he hadn't been so furious.
"Not into. . .melodrama. Tacky." Nathan shifted on the bed, jaw clenching and sweat standing out on his forehead. The small, choked noise of pain he made was too loud in the quiet room, too much of an admission, and Scott reached out, taking his hand and squeezing it tightly.
"I should take you over my knee." It was a weak joke. Not funny at all. Humor as a coping mechanism. Not his style.
"Like. . .to see you try." Nathan shuddered and went limp, breathing raggedly. His eyes were closed, and he was silent for so long that Scott figured he'd passed out, until he spoke again. "Don't want to go back," he murmured in a barely-audible voice. It was a plea, plain and simple, and something twisted in Scott's chest as he heard it.
"You need to be there," he said as steadily as he could. That had been all that he'd been able to focus on, on the way up here, chasing a stray credit card slip under one of the pseudonyms Nate had mentioned to him once, what seemed like ages ago. "Hank might be able to. . ."
A travesty of a laugh, a broken sound devoid of all humor. "I'm. . .dying, Scott. . ."
"You are NOT going to die." It was getting harder to keep his voice level, and he could feel the mask he'd maintained by sheer force of will beginning to crack. "I won't let you."
Nathan opened his eyes and looked back at him. Even hazy and half-blinded with pain, those mismatched eyes stared right into his soul. "You can't fight this. I can't even fight this. . ." He exploded into a spasm of violent coughing, gasping for air like a drowning man.
Scott shifted position on the bed, propping Nathan upright. "Just hold on," he whispered raggedly as the coughing trailed off and Nathan's head sagged limply sideways, against his shoulder.
"Can't," Nathan wheezed.
"Yes, you can. You have to!" Scott held him like this when he was a boy, in the future that was their shared past. Then, though, Nathan had wrestled the virus back under control, drawing on that incredible strength. . .
. . .the strength that was failing him now. "Fight," he grated, his vision blurring slightly as he listened to his son's shallow breathing. "Damn you, you've never given up in your life, Nathan Christopher, so you FIGHT!"
It didn't matter, this stupid vanishing act he'd pulled. It had only been pride, and fear, and weariness. . .Scott KNEW that, and was furious at himself for not seeing the way Nathan had been withdrawing from them all. Not seeing it in time to stop him, to keep the days they'd lost. . .
. . .the days together they'd never have back.
Desperation swelled inside him, and he reached out blindly, desperately, along his psi-link with Jean. *Jean! Jean, I found him. . .* She could help, she could keep him here, with them. . .
Nathan moaned, fighting feebly to pull away, and what was left of Scott's indecision shattered as he realized how weak he really was. "No. . .Scott, PLEASE. . ." he begged.
Scott didn't let him go. There wasn't much clear in his mind right now, except that, that iron-clad fact that he was NOT letting go of his son. "It's just Jean," he said helplessly. "Just. . ."
"I can't. . .I can't feel anyone else hurting because of me, Scott, please. . ." Nathan was almost choking on the words, but he forced them out stubbornly, almost desperately.
Scott froze. "Is that why you left?" he asked, his voice sounding haunted even to himself. Had it been them? Their pain, that had driven him away. . .?
Nathan squeezed his eyes tightly shut. The tears leaked out, nevertheless. "Part," he barely breathed. "But it wasn't, I don't want you to think. . .I just needed. . ."
Jean hadn't answered. Scott began to call out to her again, and then hesitated. "Nathan," he said unsteadily, "I can't just SIT here and w-watch you. . ."
"Please. . ." It was almost a whimper.
Scott turned his face away for a moment, trying to think of some excuse, some way to say no. "Hank could at least make you comfortable," he said weakly, hating himself for saying it, for the tacit admission.
"N-No. Eyes open," Nathan murmured almost dazedly, and then whispered something in Askani. "Have to. . .see what's coming."
He wasn't making any sense. Then again, with a fever that high. . .
"Always. . .wanted to know what h-happened when you woke up. . ."
"Nathan," Scott whispered. Nathan's body was relaxing, his breathing coming slower now. "I. . ." The words stuck in his throat. Saying them would be admitting that there wasn't going to be any time to say them later, that. . .
No. . .
No!
Part of his mind screamed at him to drag Nathan out of this damned hotel, dump him in the back seat of the car, and drive like hell for Westchester, but he. . .couldn't. . .
Just. . .
. . .couldn't. He stared down at his son's ashen face, and brushed sweat-damp silver hair back from his forehead gently.
All the things he'd never said.
All the things he'd never done, all the times he'd failed. . .
"S-Saw it," Nathan murmured, the words growing increasingly slurred, but Scott heard the wonder, too, and something eased inside him, the part of him that had raged at the world for its unfairness, as Nate continued to speak. "Got t'see the world change. . .worth th'price of admission, Slym. . ."
"Nathan. . ." The words died on his lips as the whole mass of guilt and self-recrimination shifted, teetering precariously on the edge of something. . .to crush him or to fall away entirely, he didn't know.
Nathan's eyes drifted closed. For what seemed like forever, Scott held him. Counted each breath his son took, his own heart thudding sickly, too loud in the silence between.
And apologies weren't as important, anymore. He just wished. . .
More time. A year, a moment. More honesty. Less fear.
"I love you," Scott said softly. The only words that mattered, right now. "You've made me. . .so proud, to be your father." His voice cracked, and he didn't try to hide it. Or the tears.
He felt it, an echo of wistful joy, a moment of almost grateful release.
Surcease from pain, in a single soaring moment.
And then silence.
"G'journey, son," he whispered.
fin