Welcome The Sun
by Alicia McKenzie
DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Marvel, and are used without permission for entertainment purposes only. No money, don't sue.
Morning. You don't look quite awake yet.
What am I doing?
I call it greeting the dawn. You could be characteristically flippant and call it a genetic predisposition to morning-personhood. . .although you should know better, knowing how much caffeine it takes to get me ready to face the day.
I prefer to think of it as a longing for the light. I'm afraid of the dark, you know.
I'm glad you find that so funny, Dom. You'd think that after eighteen years, I'd be able to confide these little things to you without having you break into gales of hysterical laughter.
Sorry has no meaning. But on the upside, you're cute when you blush.
Okay, no need to glare at me. Just having a little fun at your expense. . .
Was I serious? About being annoyed, no. About being afraid of the dark. . .absolutely.
I knew a poet once. She wrote 'night is fear and sleep is death'. Right after we'd had a conversation a lot like this one, actually. Ironic, isn't it? To think that I've inspired poetry. . .
No, you don't need to be jealous. She won't be born for another six hundred years.
Oh, stow the Advil jokes, would you? Look at the sunrise, instead.
Watch the light chase the shadows away.
I know you don't like waking up alone. I was coming back, you know. I wasn't expecting you to get up this early, after how. . .um, late a night we had.
I just wanted. . .I needed. . .
This. To see it.
It's a constant. One of the few I know.
Oh, I know there are no guarantees. I know there are powers out there that could destroy that circle of light just beginning to creep up over the horizon. Oath, I suppose I'd be one of them, if it wasn't for the virus. I remember Rachel saying that. . .that I could extinguish a star.
It does. It does frighten me, Dom. Makes it worse, when I can feel it. . .and I do, sometimes. The power, I mean. I know I can never use it, not unless I was willing to pay with my life, spend it for something worth the cost. . .but I can feel it, inside me. More and more, these days.
It's as if. . .reality gets thinner. And I can see, see how. . .malleable it is, under the illusion of solidity. I see it, and I know that I could just stretch out my hand, and extinguish the sun.
Or make it dance. I like being human better. I like watching the sunrise and listening to the world waking up around me. The sun shines on us all. There's no judgement in the nature of light. . .
Yeah, I know. Waxing a little too poetic, this morning. Chalk it up to the fact that I haven't had my fourth cup of coffee yet.
What did I mean when I said I was afraid of the dark?
You have to ask?
It's a good point, I suppose. None of the more traumatic episodes in my life have happened in the dark. And yes, I know we've been on more night missions than either of us cares to count, and no, I wasn't secretly hyperventilating every time, or anything.
It's not really the dark, it's the night, and it's not the night itself, it's. . .
The dreams.
Notice I didn't say nightmares. And yes, I know you understand about nightmares, Dom. I've seen some of yours secondhand, since we formed the link, and I've flonqing well shared a bed with you often enough over the last two decades that I know how bad yours can be.
Okay. So I get a little more demonstrative during mine. Heh. Maybe you should start bringing a baseball bat to bed. Oh, a pillow usually works, does it?
Yeah. I don't mind waking up from one to the feel of your arms around me, either. Not a bad way to wake up, period. . .
I hate my dreams. Even the ones that aren't nightmares.
It's. . .hard to explain. The dreams of the past. . .or the future, whichever, are bad enough. I think that's all wound up in how we telepaths dream. . .and remember. Too vivid. . .too real. There are times in my life I'd rather not relive, thank you very much.
The others. . .I dream alternatives, Dom. That's probably the best way to put it. Different roads, leading away from the choices I've made. Different futures. Pain that I've doomed myself or others to suffer, brighter moments that I've managed to forestall completely, floundering around in time as I do. . .
I do not need to calm down. I'm fine. But I think. . .I think I'm just going to watch the sunrise now.
It is beautiful.
I know my coffee's getting cold. Caffeine is caffeine.
Listen to the birds. . .
. . .all right. But don't you dare laugh.
I don't feel like I'm drowning in time, when I watch the sunrise. Because all it does is rise and set, this perfect cycle that existed before me, before Apocalypse. . .before humanity itself. It continues. All the war and blood and pain. . .it's never stopped the sun from rising.
It comes back to the beginning, every day. The light reaches every place it left behind the night before and drives the darkness back. I keep hoping that maybe it'll reach me too, chase my shadows away. . .
No, I'm not. I just have something in my eye.
Yes, both of them.
fin