Siege Perilous - Aftermath - The Truth
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xp_logsFollowing the battle and the defeat of Roma, there a moment of realisation.
Emma Grace Frost. Emma Grace Frost. Emma Grace Frost. Emma Grace Frost.
Reflections and facets, a diamond-dazzle of them.
Emma Grace Frost looked into a mind that looked back at her, a diamond reflection that was and wasn’t Emma Grace Frost. An Emma that had never (literally) fallen beneath Shaw’s spell, an Emma who had gone looking for cracks in her world and suddenly found herself looking back at herself on the other side. For a brief moment the two Emmas looked into each other’s mind and then both of them smiled at what they saw.
Whereas Emma saw diamond, Jean saw fire. It burned through the curtain that up until about 5 minutes ago she didn't even know existed, casting a light onto what lay on the other side: another world with another Jean Grey, where her experience with the Hellfire Club was mostly just a note in a case file. Where she still lived with the X-Men and practiced medicine. Where she still had a family. A world that almost felt fake, but she somehow knew was real.
Staring at a frozen picture of herself, lost in the woods with Emma, of all people, Jean couldn't help but notice something else. Something more complicated.
It was the world that was far more complicated, pieced together like patchwork that ran up into the sky and spread out, up and through the stars. The edges had once been long raw, frail, and jagged, easy to rip apart, but had just needed the right push until now, the right energy, to be able to scar over and heal.
Jean unconsciously reached out her hand toward one of the scars that went right through the ballroom. But the ballroom itself seemed hazy, like something out of a dream.
"Do you see this too?" she said quietly to Emma.
Emma smiled as she felt a mind utterly familiar, completely different, open to her, let her see what had been on the other side, what now was. “I know about it,” she said, let the wonder she felt come through in her tone. “I’ve always known about it. The cracks. The wounds... I’ve had to be so careful not to open up the wounds.” Her hand raised, almost in imitation of Jean’s. “You’ve fixed it. Healed it.”
Jean's hand stopped just short, trembling. She pulled it away, Emma's words ringing through her ears. "No. This can't be right," she said, swallowing. She knew if she touched it, fell down the rabbit hole, she'd find out more. She didn't know if she wanted to know more. Did she?
“It is what it is,” breathed Emma, a strange distracted joy in her mind as the other Emma showed her the world beyond the cracks, a world where the White Queen had never been in a cage, had always been formidable. “I think... I think you can choose not to know. But it won’t break the world if you do.”
Turning to Emma, Jean saw the look on the other woman's face, like a child opening up a door to find everything she had ever wanted. And Jean envied her.
When she started spouting confusing nonsense and confessing secrets, part of Jean knew she was telling the truth, even if she didn't quite understand what the full truth was. It lay just under the surface, waiting. She didn't think she could continue to choose to live in blissful ignorance, never knowing, part of herself always missing. Because it had been like that for as long as she could remember.
"I want to know, but I'm scared."
Emma’s gaze sharpened, her focus returning from the story of the other Emma to the woman beside her. “You’re extraordinary,” she said, simply. “One of the strongest people I’ve known. And one of the most moral.” She laughed suddenly, a throaty chuckle. “Which is probably why we don’t get on nearly as well as we should. Whatever it is that you might find out, you’re strong enough to deal with it.” She reached out suddenly, her hand taking Jean’s in a mirror image of them lost in the woods on the other side of the… crack in the world. “And it turns out,” she said, smiling at the knowledge of the other Emma, “I’m strong enough to help you, if you need it.”
Jean met Emma's eyes for a moment or two, taken aback and not quite feeling worthy of the compliments she had bestowed upon her, in either world. It took a few long moments for the words to sit right in her mind and in her heart. Eyes fluttering, she glanced down at her hand. It felt strengthening, like a tether, or an anchor.
She drew in a breath. "Okay," she said.
Reaching her other hand out, Jean touched the scar, immediately feeling the undertow as she was pulled back into her mind. The scars remained, and a mirror shimmered into place around them, capturing Jean's face before cracking and splitting into different faces that were her, but not her, with different worlds behind them.
Some of the faces faded away with screams, and fire, until only a couple of faces lingered: an older version of herself, with confident, tired, but loving eyes, and another that was the same age as her but there was nothing loving there, only a blackened soul.
Jean froze, catching the woman's attention. For a moment she felt like a trapped animal. A flurry of images flooded Jean's mind, images of both women, two sides of a coin, battling for the soul of reality but only serving to shatter it to pieces until the sun came along to put it back together.
A wash of fire erupted from Jean over the mirror, causing it to melt. Her breath quickened as smoke filled the now darkened room and the images faded. Throat feeling dry, she swallowed, a tear streaming down her cheek.
“You didn’t choose it,” said Emma softly. “I doubt it is very comforting after what you’ve seen, but you never chose to be part of what the Phoenix did when it used you. And in the end you found a way to stop it when things could still be rebuilt.” Emma laughed suddenly, at something she told herself across the worlds. “It was a hell of a patchwork thing. I mean, it would blow over with a word in the wrong ear, but it was a Universe we could live in. You gave us time to make that. You stood against something that could tear a Universe to pieces. You were our last defence and you saved us from the end of all things. I’ve always thought I owed you a drink for that. Or several. Several magnums of really good champagne, at the least. Maybe I can finally make you the offer,” she said speculatively, her eyes tracing the shape of the scar in front of her, increasingly hazy but definitely and decidedly healed by Jean’s outpouring of power.
"But what about the other one? Aren't I her too?" Jean said finally, It felt like the world had closed in around her and had become twisted, distorted.
"There wouldn't have been anything to fix if she...I-I hadn't..."
Her stomach lurched as the world that was ripped away from around them and she found herself throwing up on what was once an opulent, yet charred hardwood floor but was now a snow-dusted sidewalk with skeletal trees and the New York City skyline looming over them.
Wiping her mouth, Jean started to tremble, struggling for breath as the blood pounded in her ears and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest.
"None of them are me. But they're me," she said, looking up at Emma as her eyes glistened with tears.
"We all make imperfect choices," said Emma. "In grief, in despair, in rage. Believe me, I've made many imperfect choices. But," she reached out with her other hand, drew Jean up from her knees, "you chose again. And again. And again. Each choice you made showed that all you wanted was what was best for everyone. What was best for those of us who were left." Emma leaned forward then, left the ghost of a kiss on Jean's cheek. "Choose life," she whispered. "Choose beauty. And sorrow. And pain. Because they are all life. And if you do, I promise that you will be magnificent."
Deep in Central Park was one of the quietest places to be in the City that never slept. But still, there was always some sort of sound: the wind, trees rustling, the distant sound of police sirens. Yet in the moment, Jean couldn't hear anything but the beating of her own heart. She looked away with a faint nod, finally able to catch her breath that misted against the moonlight.
"I don't know what to say," she said softly. It was a lot, a whole hell of a lot, and it was still sinking in. But one thing she knew for certain: everything was suddenly a lot more complicated than it was when they stepped into the park that evening.
"What happens now?"
“I think...” Emma tilted her head. “I think that our world is healed. That the woman you... dealt with was using the cracks in the world as a way to steal people. To build a place behind the cracks where she could play with people, feed on their emotions, drain them dry. She won’t be doing that any more. And now you’ve healed the cracks.”
Emma’s voice was very soft as she said, “I’ve always been here, through the fall of the world and its remaking. Some of us have been. Not everyone. We couldn’t talk about it; everything was too unstable. But I think now we can. I’ll have to talk to Charles.” She looked down at their joined hands. “I know what it was like to live through the end of the world. I don’t know what it’s like to be on the other side. To find out there was another you, once. If you think you can manage it, I would like you to see the Professor with me. But only if you think you can.”
It wasn't just Emma. There were more. She had said that before, and yet it didn't sink in until then. So many things left to sink in.
"So he knows too. That means he--" Jean said, the realization hitting her like a punch to the face as she unconsciously ripped her hands away from Emma's to cover her mouth.
Because it likely meant that the Charles she knew before, and some of the others, were not the same people she had grown up with. They had died, just like her other self had died to them. And the others, refugees from a universe that was, had taken their places. It wasn't their fault. They didn't ask for it.
But they knew. They had years to mourn and accept the fragile patchwork world that had been handed to them. To commiserate and grieve among themselves. To have no one to bury, and to live with the dead wearing their loved one's face.
"I can't meet with him yet. Not...not right now," Jean said. The practical side of her knew this was necessary, but the emotional side of her was still having her heart ripped out. Though Jean herself had not destroyed the world, and the other part of her had fought to save it, she had to live in the consequences. Even though Emma's perspective helped keep her from completely going off the rails, there was still a lot to unpack. How could she not?
She drew in a ragged breath, clinging to the well-practiced stoic, yet friendly face of a medical professional, but quickly realized it was starting to crack. She turned away.
"I need to go. Can you tell the others the problem's been taken care of?"
“Of course,” said Emma, feeling the roil of Jean’s mind, though she didn’t intrude on it with her powers. She looked around her as Jean stumbled away. The other world had faded away altogether and it was just Central Park now. She had been the Emma in that world, the Emma in a cage made by Sebastian and Selene, but now she was this Emma and the other Emma’s experience was already fading into nothing but memory, not even a particularly strong or disturbing memory. Just something that happened. On the other side of the rainbow, so to speak.
“Oh, Auntie Em,” the White Queen said to herself, her smile soft, “there’s no place like home.”
Emma Grace Frost. Emma Grace Frost. Emma Grace Frost. Emma Grace Frost.
Reflections and facets, a diamond-dazzle of them.
Emma Grace Frost looked into a mind that looked back at her, a diamond reflection that was and wasn’t Emma Grace Frost. An Emma that had never (literally) fallen beneath Shaw’s spell, an Emma who had gone looking for cracks in her world and suddenly found herself looking back at herself on the other side. For a brief moment the two Emmas looked into each other’s mind and then both of them smiled at what they saw.
Whereas Emma saw diamond, Jean saw fire. It burned through the curtain that up until about 5 minutes ago she didn't even know existed, casting a light onto what lay on the other side: another world with another Jean Grey, where her experience with the Hellfire Club was mostly just a note in a case file. Where she still lived with the X-Men and practiced medicine. Where she still had a family. A world that almost felt fake, but she somehow knew was real.
Staring at a frozen picture of herself, lost in the woods with Emma, of all people, Jean couldn't help but notice something else. Something more complicated.
It was the world that was far more complicated, pieced together like patchwork that ran up into the sky and spread out, up and through the stars. The edges had once been long raw, frail, and jagged, easy to rip apart, but had just needed the right push until now, the right energy, to be able to scar over and heal.
Jean unconsciously reached out her hand toward one of the scars that went right through the ballroom. But the ballroom itself seemed hazy, like something out of a dream.
"Do you see this too?" she said quietly to Emma.
Emma smiled as she felt a mind utterly familiar, completely different, open to her, let her see what had been on the other side, what now was. “I know about it,” she said, let the wonder she felt come through in her tone. “I’ve always known about it. The cracks. The wounds... I’ve had to be so careful not to open up the wounds.” Her hand raised, almost in imitation of Jean’s. “You’ve fixed it. Healed it.”
Jean's hand stopped just short, trembling. She pulled it away, Emma's words ringing through her ears. "No. This can't be right," she said, swallowing. She knew if she touched it, fell down the rabbit hole, she'd find out more. She didn't know if she wanted to know more. Did she?
“It is what it is,” breathed Emma, a strange distracted joy in her mind as the other Emma showed her the world beyond the cracks, a world where the White Queen had never been in a cage, had always been formidable. “I think... I think you can choose not to know. But it won’t break the world if you do.”
Turning to Emma, Jean saw the look on the other woman's face, like a child opening up a door to find everything she had ever wanted. And Jean envied her.
When she started spouting confusing nonsense and confessing secrets, part of Jean knew she was telling the truth, even if she didn't quite understand what the full truth was. It lay just under the surface, waiting. She didn't think she could continue to choose to live in blissful ignorance, never knowing, part of herself always missing. Because it had been like that for as long as she could remember.
"I want to know, but I'm scared."
Emma’s gaze sharpened, her focus returning from the story of the other Emma to the woman beside her. “You’re extraordinary,” she said, simply. “One of the strongest people I’ve known. And one of the most moral.” She laughed suddenly, a throaty chuckle. “Which is probably why we don’t get on nearly as well as we should. Whatever it is that you might find out, you’re strong enough to deal with it.” She reached out suddenly, her hand taking Jean’s in a mirror image of them lost in the woods on the other side of the… crack in the world. “And it turns out,” she said, smiling at the knowledge of the other Emma, “I’m strong enough to help you, if you need it.”
Jean met Emma's eyes for a moment or two, taken aback and not quite feeling worthy of the compliments she had bestowed upon her, in either world. It took a few long moments for the words to sit right in her mind and in her heart. Eyes fluttering, she glanced down at her hand. It felt strengthening, like a tether, or an anchor.
She drew in a breath. "Okay," she said.
Reaching her other hand out, Jean touched the scar, immediately feeling the undertow as she was pulled back into her mind. The scars remained, and a mirror shimmered into place around them, capturing Jean's face before cracking and splitting into different faces that were her, but not her, with different worlds behind them.
Some of the faces faded away with screams, and fire, until only a couple of faces lingered: an older version of herself, with confident, tired, but loving eyes, and another that was the same age as her but there was nothing loving there, only a blackened soul.
Jean froze, catching the woman's attention. For a moment she felt like a trapped animal. A flurry of images flooded Jean's mind, images of both women, two sides of a coin, battling for the soul of reality but only serving to shatter it to pieces until the sun came along to put it back together.
A wash of fire erupted from Jean over the mirror, causing it to melt. Her breath quickened as smoke filled the now darkened room and the images faded. Throat feeling dry, she swallowed, a tear streaming down her cheek.
“You didn’t choose it,” said Emma softly. “I doubt it is very comforting after what you’ve seen, but you never chose to be part of what the Phoenix did when it used you. And in the end you found a way to stop it when things could still be rebuilt.” Emma laughed suddenly, at something she told herself across the worlds. “It was a hell of a patchwork thing. I mean, it would blow over with a word in the wrong ear, but it was a Universe we could live in. You gave us time to make that. You stood against something that could tear a Universe to pieces. You were our last defence and you saved us from the end of all things. I’ve always thought I owed you a drink for that. Or several. Several magnums of really good champagne, at the least. Maybe I can finally make you the offer,” she said speculatively, her eyes tracing the shape of the scar in front of her, increasingly hazy but definitely and decidedly healed by Jean’s outpouring of power.
"But what about the other one? Aren't I her too?" Jean said finally, It felt like the world had closed in around her and had become twisted, distorted.
"There wouldn't have been anything to fix if she...I-I hadn't..."
Her stomach lurched as the world that was ripped away from around them and she found herself throwing up on what was once an opulent, yet charred hardwood floor but was now a snow-dusted sidewalk with skeletal trees and the New York City skyline looming over them.
Wiping her mouth, Jean started to tremble, struggling for breath as the blood pounded in her ears and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest.
"None of them are me. But they're me," she said, looking up at Emma as her eyes glistened with tears.
"We all make imperfect choices," said Emma. "In grief, in despair, in rage. Believe me, I've made many imperfect choices. But," she reached out with her other hand, drew Jean up from her knees, "you chose again. And again. And again. Each choice you made showed that all you wanted was what was best for everyone. What was best for those of us who were left." Emma leaned forward then, left the ghost of a kiss on Jean's cheek. "Choose life," she whispered. "Choose beauty. And sorrow. And pain. Because they are all life. And if you do, I promise that you will be magnificent."
Deep in Central Park was one of the quietest places to be in the City that never slept. But still, there was always some sort of sound: the wind, trees rustling, the distant sound of police sirens. Yet in the moment, Jean couldn't hear anything but the beating of her own heart. She looked away with a faint nod, finally able to catch her breath that misted against the moonlight.
"I don't know what to say," she said softly. It was a lot, a whole hell of a lot, and it was still sinking in. But one thing she knew for certain: everything was suddenly a lot more complicated than it was when they stepped into the park that evening.
"What happens now?"
“I think...” Emma tilted her head. “I think that our world is healed. That the woman you... dealt with was using the cracks in the world as a way to steal people. To build a place behind the cracks where she could play with people, feed on their emotions, drain them dry. She won’t be doing that any more. And now you’ve healed the cracks.”
Emma’s voice was very soft as she said, “I’ve always been here, through the fall of the world and its remaking. Some of us have been. Not everyone. We couldn’t talk about it; everything was too unstable. But I think now we can. I’ll have to talk to Charles.” She looked down at their joined hands. “I know what it was like to live through the end of the world. I don’t know what it’s like to be on the other side. To find out there was another you, once. If you think you can manage it, I would like you to see the Professor with me. But only if you think you can.”
It wasn't just Emma. There were more. She had said that before, and yet it didn't sink in until then. So many things left to sink in.
"So he knows too. That means he--" Jean said, the realization hitting her like a punch to the face as she unconsciously ripped her hands away from Emma's to cover her mouth.
Because it likely meant that the Charles she knew before, and some of the others, were not the same people she had grown up with. They had died, just like her other self had died to them. And the others, refugees from a universe that was, had taken their places. It wasn't their fault. They didn't ask for it.
But they knew. They had years to mourn and accept the fragile patchwork world that had been handed to them. To commiserate and grieve among themselves. To have no one to bury, and to live with the dead wearing their loved one's face.
"I can't meet with him yet. Not...not right now," Jean said. The practical side of her knew this was necessary, but the emotional side of her was still having her heart ripped out. Though Jean herself had not destroyed the world, and the other part of her had fought to save it, she had to live in the consequences. Even though Emma's perspective helped keep her from completely going off the rails, there was still a lot to unpack. How could she not?
She drew in a ragged breath, clinging to the well-practiced stoic, yet friendly face of a medical professional, but quickly realized it was starting to crack. She turned away.
"I need to go. Can you tell the others the problem's been taken care of?"
“Of course,” said Emma, feeling the roil of Jean’s mind, though she didn’t intrude on it with her powers. She looked around her as Jean stumbled away. The other world had faded away altogether and it was just Central Park now. She had been the Emma in that world, the Emma in a cage made by Sebastian and Selene, but now she was this Emma and the other Emma’s experience was already fading into nothing but memory, not even a particularly strong or disturbing memory. Just something that happened. On the other side of the rainbow, so to speak.
“Oh, Auntie Em,” the White Queen said to herself, her smile soft, “there’s no place like home.”
