Work Text:
Alkali Lake
Scott knew something wasn’t right. Hera had warned him as soon as they saw her, telling him that something was wrong. But the sight of Jean had transfixed him – he wanted to believe it so badly.
“Trust me”, Jean had told him. “I can control it now.”
But when she kissed him, he saw and felt red hot flames through his closed eyes. Opening them in surprise, he saw her beloved crane daemon ablaze. He tried to pull away in shock, but he couldn’t. Jean’s hands, soft on his cheeks, held him like a steel trap. He couldn’t move, and something began to build up beneath his skin. At first, he didn’t understand, but the pain started to prickle and intensify until he grunted. Vaguely, he heard Hera shriek in horror, and in an instant, she flew at Jean to stop her. It succeeded, making Jean release him, but a furious cry rang in his ears. A sharp pain struck his chest, as though something had been torn from it, and he fell when a shockwave crashed into him.
A blinding light, brighter than before, engulfed him. He shouted for Hera – something was terribly wrong. But he couldn’t hear himself, and the pounding pain in his chest made it hard to breathe. Darkness soon overtook him.
---
When Logan arrived at the lake, the eerie silence set all his instincts on edge. Something terrible had happened here. Rocks floated, and the air felt unnaturally still. Suddenly, Enyo ran forward, shouting – “Logan!”
Instinctively, he followed her and saw what she had found – a body lying on the beach. As he got closer, he recognized Scott. That moron, Logan thought irritably, making the Professor worry and sending them after him only to be found sleeping on the beach. Yet the uneasy feeling that had followed him since arriving only grew.
“Hey, Cyke”, Logan said, kneeling beside him and patting his cheek. “Time to wake up.”
Scott was pale – too pale. Logan touched his neck, checking for a pulse. It was weak, but it was there.
“He’s alive”, he muttered, both annoyed and secretly relieved.
But Enyo didn’t respond. Logan glanced up, as she usually wasn’t late to join him in grumbling, but she was looking around. First at Scott and then looking around again, growing more confused and terrified.
“What is it?” Logan frowned.
“Hera…” Enyo whispered in her usual raspy voice. Logan had never seen her like this. “She’s not here.”
Logan quickly scanned the area, searching for the white falcon with red eyes who was always at Scott’s side ready to support him. Scott and Hera were inseparable, closer than people usually were to their daemons. There had been hints about shared traumas, which was something Logan could secretly understand.
But now, Hera was nowhere to be seen. Not when Scott clearly needed her. Logan knew she wouldn’t leave him. Not willingly.
She was missing.
---
Logan had a bad feeling ever since they’d found Scott and Jean unconscious at the lake – Jean with her daemon also unconscious, and Scott’s daemon nowhere in sight. Logan told Enyo that Hera was probably tracking whoever had attacked them. She was as practical and loyal to the cause as Scott, surely that was the reason for her absence. But the scepticism in Enyo’s eyes told him he hadn’t sounded convincing.
Both of them had wanted to give Jean a chance to explain, to tell them what had happened. With Scott still unconscious, she was their only chance to understand.
Jean had been so confused, so scared. It hurt to see her like that.
“What happened to Hera?” Enyo asked, not holding back.
Logan gave her a look for asking so quickly, but he couldn’t deny he had been about to ask the same question.
Jean seemed confused at first, but then her eyes drifted to the other bed in the room where Scott lay, silent and utterly still. The others had wanted to keep the couple together, given Jean’s miraculous return, despite Logan’s misgivings. They thought he was just jealous, and even Logan tried to believe that – despite his gut feeling that something far worse was happening.
“Oh god”, Jean whispered, her eyes widening in horror.
Everything loose in the room began to tremble, then shaking. The medical instruments flickered, glitching. Logan knew that it was Jean.
He tried to tell her to stay with him, to calm her down, despite the growing dread of what her reaction could mean.
“Kill me”, Jean whispered in despair.
“What?” Logan asked, half in confusion, half in horror.
“Kill me before I kill someone else.”
Logan’s worst fears were confirmed. He tried to tell her the professor could help her, despite Enyo’s growing feeling of horror inside of him.
“I don’t want to fix it!” Jean roared, and the last thing Logan saw was her crane daemon bursting into flames, like a Phoenix.
---
“Kill me”, Scott whispered in despair.
Jean had been the love of his life. His partner through everything. Or so he’d thought.
But … Hera had been his soulmate.
His soul screamed in agony, torn apart. It felt like he was staring into the depth of a black hole that excruciatingly tore apart everything close by and sucked in all the remaining fragments. When he reached for the connection that had always been there, all he found was the terrifying void of something greater and deeper than what he could comprehend, something that he knew with all certainty would consume him over time, until all that was left was an empty husk.
But he didn’t care. He wanted to disappear.
“Shut up”, Logan’s voice pierced through the darkness.
Slowly, Scott opened his eyes to see Logan standing beside his infirmary bed where he was curled up and had been since he woke up and realized what had happened.
“First Jean”, Logan growled between gritted teeth, looking furious. “Now you. No. I won’t take it.”
Leaning down up close to Scott’s face, he growled – “You hear me? I refuse to be your murderer. Either of yours.”
Logan left, but Scott startled when he felt a weight beside him. Opening his eyes again, he stared when he saw the familiar form of a wolverine lying down next to him. Scott glanced at the door, but Logan was gone.
Enyo glanced at him, saying nothing, as she curled up close to his chest. Frowning, Scott knew that he had never seen her apart from Logan before, but in the middle of the fresh pain he was unable to follow the line of his thoughts any further. Instead, he slowly rested a hand on the dark coarse fur that surprisingly had underlying softness in some areas. It was weak, but he could feel a faint glimmer under his hand and a responding throb in the emptiness in his chest. Somehow, it changed the fresh wound into a softer throbbing.
Grasping the fur desperately, he gasped, curling up with his arms around her. The daemon who was famous for being stingy like her human didn’t say a word. She simply rested her head on his shoulder.
She didn’t leave him.
---
In the end, when Jean asked Logan if he would die for “them”, he answered honestly.
“No. Not for them. For you”, he panted through the pain as she tried to tear him apart. “For you … and Scott.”
He recalled the shell of a man who brokenly had begged him to save Jean. Scott had lost everything, and Logan had seen in his eyes that he knew where this was leading. But still, despite everything she had done to him, Scott had begged him to save her.
“Save me”, Jean whispered with her last grasp of sanity.
Logan knew what he had to do.
With her blood on his hands, he watched as the soft, familiar eyes returned to her. She smiled, and he could feel a final burst of power releasing from her before she died in his arms.
---
Scott gasped. He felt it – Jean’s power.
But this time, it didn’t feel like the earlier surges of chaos.
Looking to his side amidst the chaos of the battlefield, he saw glimmering of dust swirling and forming into a familiar shape – a white bird of prey.
“Hera..!” he gasped.
"Scott!" Hera shouted in disbelief and joy.
Scott knew what it was. Jean’s final gift.