prose_alchemist | X-Men: My Last Breath

Title: My Last Breath
Author:

jordannamorgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: G.
Characters: Mainly Scott.
Setting: The end of X2, and afterward.
Summary: A drabbleset songfic. Scott feels compelled to revisit Alkali Lake.
Disclaimer: The X-Men belong to Marvel and Fox. The song is "My Last Breath", by Evanescence.
Notes: The song simply demanded this piece of fiction. It is written as a set of five drabbles, each exactly one hundred words in length (not including the lyrics).

"Goodbye."

As Jean Grey released the Blackbird to hover under its own power, she gazed upward, searing the image of the jet into her memory. She could feel each life aboard it, just as she felt the pulse in her own veins. They would be safe now. She smiled softly and turned away, holding Scott close in her heart’s memory.

A wall of water loomed over her—and a wall of fire burned within her. She wondered which would consume her first. Drawing in a final breath of icy winter air, she closed her eyes… and surrendered to them both.

Holding my last breath
Safe inside myself
Are all my thoughts of you
Sweet raptured light
It ends here tonight

Scott Summers woke with a start, his skin tingling from the warmth of an imagined touch. He still felt Jean’s arms around him, felt her presence in his soul, heard her voice in his mind. It was this way every night; the pull as of something magnetic, deep in the core of his being. It felt too real to be a dream, and he feared he was going mad.

Only one way to find out.

He rose in the dark, determined this time to follow the madness where it beckoned him, and be rid of it—one way or another.

Hold on to me love
You know I can’t stay long
All I wanted to say was
I love you and I’m not afraid
Can you hear me?
Can you feel me in your arms?

Jean had always loved winter.

Scott moved through the haunted beauty of a frozen landscape, led on by what force he knew not. As he stepped from among the trees, a bracing wind across the water struck his face, and he breathed deeply, reaching within himself for the familiar fire that was not his own.

"Jean?"

But there was nothing. The waters of Alkali Lake lapped gently at their new shoreline, and Scott felt only silence, inside and out.

As he fell to his knees, his shoulders shook with dry sobs, his mutation denying him even the release of tears.

I’ll miss the winter
A world of fragile things
Look for me in the white forest
Hiding in a hollow tree
Come find me
I know you hear me
I can taste it in your tears

The snowstorm came suddenly and violently.

As twilight descended, Scott lost his way in the flying snow. The instinct that had led him here could not lead him back. His body grew as numb with cold as his soul was with grief, and he simply went on walking, no longer caring where he would be when he finally stopped.

He did stop, at last, unable to take another step. Collapsing in the shelter of a fallen tree, he curled into a ball and closed his eyes.

Perhaps before this night was over, he would be with Jean again, after all.

Closing your eyes to disappear
You pray your dreams will leave you here
But still you wake and know the truth
No one’s there

Scott opened his eyes to find Xavier’s face leaning over him.

"It’s alright, Scott. You’re back at the school. You’ve suffered some frostbite, but no permanent damage. If Logan hadn’t found you…"

Turning his head, Scott saw Logan lurking by the doorway, his face grave.

"How did you know where to find me?"

In the instant before he turned and walked away, a shadow passed through the Wolverine’s eyes. At that moment, Scott understood that Logan, too, felt the call that had led him back to Alkali Lake.

He felt warm then, as the fire deep within him burned again.

Say goodnight, don’t be afraid
Calling me, calling me as you fade to black…