xp_logs | Hand Me Down: Conclusion

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Saturday afternoon: a few last words in the medlab, and then Jamie takes a trip inside his head, back to where it all started.

Dr. Bartlet was busy initializing monitor banks and arranging her equipment, and the Professor sat nearby, wearing an expression of unshakable calm; Jamie, though, had eyes only for Kitty, sitting at his bedside and giving a distinct impression that sudden continental drift would fail to move her even an inch further away.

The IV in his arm was keeping Jamie from doing what he really wanted to do, which was sit up and give her a hug; he settled for reaching for her hand and offering what he hoped wasn't too nervous a smile. "Promise me you'll eat something, if--if this goes on for a while?"

Clasping his hand tightly, she brought it to her lips to place a soft kiss on his knuckles. "I'm sure someone will bring me food sooner or later. If nothing else, I know Dr. B has a stash of donuts down here somewhere." She was doing her best to keep the worry out of her eyes, although she wasn't quite succeeding.

"Good. And sleep, too, if you can, if you have to. I--" He shifted his grip on her hand, stroking one finger down her wrist to brush against the silver bracelet resting there. "I'll come back as soon as I'm able to. Always will. I promised."

"And I'll be here," Kitty said. "Always and forever."

"I'll try not to keep you waiting too long." Jamie smiled. "I love you."

"I know," Kitty said, smiling back. "I love you, too. And," she added as she caught sight of Dr. Bartlet looking up, "I think it's show time."

"Yeah," Jamie agreed, looking over Kitty's shoulder at the Professor. "I think I'm about as ready as I'm gonna get."

Professor Xavier wheeled forward, smiling calmly. "I may have to leave after the reintegration has begun, but you may both rest assured I will be monitoring the procedure closely throughout. Do either of you have any last questions before we begin?"

Jamie shook his head slowly. "Don't think so. Kitty?"

She briefly considered asking if it was ok that she was going to stay, but quickly decided that she wouldn't listen anyway if the answer was 'no' and that the Professor would tell her if it would be dangerous for her to be here. Instead, she just shook her head, looking a little pale.

The Professor gave them one last reassuring smile. "If you're ready, then, Jamie."

Jamie's hand tightened on Kitty's. "Go ahead, sir."

He felt the Professor's mental touch like a warm fingertip on the inside of his forehead, just for a moment, and then he fell backward into darkness.

When the dark stopped swirling, Jamie found himself in a dingy green place--a secluded park corner, far away from jogging trails and duck ponds. A heap of rags lay huddled at the base of a wall, and even the birdsong sounded thin and mournful.

"Where--?"

"Ssh." The rag pile shifted, unfolding; it had Jamie's own face, haggard and filthy and hungry, and it stared at him curiously. "You have to be quiet and listen. This is where it starts."

"Where what starts?" Jamie asked with a sinking feeling.

His doppelganger pointed, and Jamie turned to see a lovely blonde woman making her careful way down the path. As he watched, she glanced over her shoulder, smiled faintly, and shifted--peaches-and-cream skin turning blue, blonde hair reddening.

"Oh no . . ." Jamie breathed.

"Ssh. Just listen and learn." The rag pile--Skippy, or Skippy-to-be, anyway--settled back down, scrambling backward into a culvert as the woman approached.

"Jamie?" she called, syrupy concern in her voice. "Are you there?"

"Go away," Skippy answered. "I know who you are!" He made as if to back further into the culvert.

"You have nightmares, don't you?" Mystique asked, and Skippy froze, staring out at her like a wounded animal. "Every night, they come. You die over and over again, and nobody ever comes to save you." She smiled sympathetically. "It's been a month, now, did you know that? A month since the hurricane, and none of your friends, none of the people you love, even think of you."

"That's not true!" But it had been so long . . .

"Oh, but it is. Why else do you think your Professor hasn't found you? He can find anyone in the world, wherever they are, and here you are on his doorstep . . . and yet here you still are, alone and hungry, cold and frightened. Don't you want to know why?"

Skippy crept forward, edging into the light, and she held out a hand. "Come with me, and I'll show you."

There were several places at the edge of the woods where someone could get a good look at the Mansion's back door, even in the dim light of a fall evening, and it seemed like Mystique knew them all. Jamie drifted along behind Skippy as she led him to a good vantage point.

"Watch, Jamie." Her voice was sympathetic and sad, and Skippy watched the door as if hypnotized.

A boy in a pirate costume led a girl in a flowy white dress out onto the patio, and behind the watchers Jamie winced. He remembered this. The pirate swept his hat off, a flamboyant gesture, to reveal--Jamie's own face. Skippy flinched as if struck.

"You see, Jamie? Why should they care about you? They've got you already--in fact, they have a Jamie Madrox who doesn't have nightmares, a Jamie Madrox whose powers work. They're quite happy with him, actually. And nobody even knows you exist." Her lips crooked up in a cruel smile that Skippy didn't see, as her voice took on a thoughtful note. "Well, as far as I know, at least. There is somebody here who knows your powers inside and out, who's been dwelling on the incident . . . who knows what he might have guessed? But if you came back, you see, his whole wonderful life might go away. Who really knows which of you is real, which is the dupe?"

SKippy made a whining, animal noise in the back of his throat. "I'll go down there right now. He's got Kitty . . ."

"Yes, he does. But think about it, Jamie . . ." Mystique's voice grew softly persuasive. "Say you go down there. You're ragged, starved, half-crazy, you stink . . . there really isn't a question of who they'd choose, is there? You've been abandoned by your friends before, back at home in Kansas--and this time, Jamie, it'll be even easier, because they can tell themselves that you aren't really real. But I think you are. And if you'll let me, I can bring you somewhere you can get cleaned up, fed . . . we'll do something about those nightmares, and help you get your powers back, and then, if you like, you can come back and settle the score evenly. Have everything you deserve . . . and everyone."

Skippy shot a suspicious look at her over his shoulder. "Yeah, right, you and that mass murderer you work for are going to help me. There's nothing in it for you."

"Of course there is," she replied, chuckling. "You're a mutant, Jamie. And whatever you might have heard in there, Magneto cares deeply about the welfare of all mutants, including you. I think you might find he's different from what you expect. But the choice is yours. Come with me, and get the help you need to take your life back . . . or try on your own, and go back to that culvert I found you in. I'm not going to force you."

"This is where I make my mistake," Skippy said, abruptly looking at Jamie. "Blink and you'll miss it, but there'll be a quiz later." He turned back, and seemed to snap back into the scene, staring longingly down at the patio. As the pirate swept his prisoner in for a kiss, Skippy shuddered violently and turned away. ". . . Okay," he said, barely audible.

Jamie's surroundings blurred, and when they steadied again he found himself in the treehouse, opposite Skippy, who looked . . . well, just like him. The Hydra suit was nowhere in evidence.

"He's not . . . yet," Skippy said, answering the unspoken question. "Those memories are gone, like the Doc thought." He grinned wryly. "So you don't get a conversation with a crazy homicidal freak trapped in a disintegrating brain and body. Lucky you."

"Yeah. Lucky me."

Skippy shrugged. "Could be worse." A long pause, and then he added, ". . . I was never the real one, was I?"

Jamie grimaced. "Not as far as anybody's been able to tell."

"Damn. Not that it mattered in the end. I'd rather you than me, honestly."

Jamie raised an eyebrow. "That's a change."

"What, you think I liked being what I was?" Skippy shook his head. "My life sucked. And if I was too crazy to remember that by the time you saw me again, well, take that as an indication of just how sucky my life, in fact, was. No, I'm better off dead." He tilted his head, smiling slightly. "But you're better off remembering. What I was, how I got there . . . because I started off as you."

"This'd be the quiz, then."

"This'd be the quiz, yep. Did you catch it? I went with Mystique of my own free will . . . did you understand why?"

Jamie drew his knees up, resting his chin on them. "Because you thought the people here were willing to throw you away. That your friends--our friends--would abandon you."

"More specific than that." Skippy smiled bitterly. "Because she was right, you've been down that road before. Ian, Dave, Lauren, Ronny--those guys knew you since kindergarten, and where are they now? And you haven't known anyone here anything like that long. Maybe they really wouldn't, I don't know--but the point is, way down in the dark, in the places you don't talk about, the places you're ashamed of, where I live--you don't know either. Do you?"

Jamie looked away.

"But that wasn't the mistake. You live with that, with not knowing. You're used to it by now. You trust them--so far, but never completely, because there's always the question, and maybe there always will be. And you don't talk about it, because it's nothing to do with them, it's just how you are. They aren't a chink in your armor, because you haven't let them be."

"I'm getting lectures on friendship from my evil twin. What a wonderful way to spend my telepathically-induced coma."

Skippy smirked. "Hey, I'm dead, I'm the one who should be complaining. Come on, then, you know where my mistake was, I know you do."

"Kitty," Jamie said, his voice carefully level. "Your mistake was thinking Kitty would ever give up on you--me--us--whatever. That she would ignore you because I was the better alternative."

"Yes."

Jamie sighed. "It was so new, back then. We'd been dating for what, four months, a little more? I'd never . . . known anything like that before. Felt like that about anyone. I was still figuring out what I felt." He smiled. "You know, they say love makes people do strange things, but it's not . . . love makes you more than you are. It doesn't need to be proven, or . . . fear, now, fear makes you do all sorts of weird stuff. Felonies, sometimes." Jamie's eyes dropped to his hands. "I used to be so scared I'd say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, and lose her. Felt like I was walking on eggshells sometimes, or like I had to keep doing bigger and bigger things to show her how I felt."

"And I had lost her," Skippy said in much the same tone. "Or I thought I had. To you. Which was a pretty surreal moment--but it was all too plausible, the spin Mystique put on it." His glance sharpened. "You said, 'used to.'"

"I learned better." Jamie chuckled, a raw sound. "A few months later, when that particular hot button got stomped on until it broke."

"You don't doubt her anymore?" Skippy prodded.

"No." And there was nothing but conviction in that word. "I'd doubt myself first." Jamie cocked an eye. "Not, I might add, completely without justification there."

"Heh. You don't have to worry very much about that, either." Skippy leaned forward. "You, right now, are stronger than I ever was, just for having learned that. They couldn't break you that way anymore. I couldn't have beaten you in a million years." He shook his head. "Mind, I'm not saying you can't be broken. Everybody can. I'm not trying to say, don't be afraid of Mystique, Sabretooth, Magneto . . . they're terrible people, and you should be afraid of them. But I don't think they could break you so badly that you couldn't be fixed. They can't, in other words, make me out of you."

"I know," Jamie said, and was surprised to find that he did know. He extended a hand; Skippy looked at it, puzzled, then back up at Jamie. "Alison told me to make things right. No more broken reflections."

"Ah." Skippy put his own hand out, not quite touching. "It isn't very pretty."

"No. Healing almost never is."

"It will hurt."

"Not more than I can stand."

"No."

"Will I be different?"

"Everybody's different. That's what growth is. You'll still be you."

"But I decide what that means."

"Yes. Always."

"Are you ready?"

"Are you?"

"Yes."