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Chapters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
 
 
 

The Companion Picture - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Dandelion
Last updated: 12/03/2009 06:26:08 PM

Chapter 20

<I walked alone, as ever, and came upon a clearing. In that clearing I saw myself as I was, and how I never would be again. Lost. Afraid. And, as ever, alone.>

Magnus opened his eyes and looked at the clock on the wall. 2:34 a.m. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Dreaming again," he murmured aloud. "If it's not me it's Remy. We seem to be plagued by restless nights."

Remy seemed to be, thankfully, sleeping better since Rogue -- Brett's, Magnus mentally corrected himself, arrival. Still, his nightmares had not given him a great deal of respite. He still woke up, sweating, sometimes screaming in the darkest hours before dawn.

<If nothing else, I'm glad Brett is here if for no other reason than to take some of the heat off me,> Magnus lay back in his bed and looked up at the ceiling. <She is infinitely better at soothing Remy's troubled soul anyway. We might just see him through this trial.>

He felt his eyelids getting heavy.

Soon, he was asleep again.

The halls of the Xavier Institute were dark. Much darker than they should ever have been. It wasn't merely the lack of light, but a distinct lack of hope.

Ever before, when he had walked these halls, Magnus had always felt a warmth within the walls of Xavier's family estate.

A warmth that the halls were now devoid of. Crackles of energy would flash like lightning off in the distant corners of the mansion, but Magnus paid them little mind. Someone was calling him. He heard the cries in his heart far before he actually heard them. They were the cries of a soul that had long since lost its way. They were the cries of a soul that was looking for a way back into the light.

Magnus kept walking. The stairs creaked under his weight as he went up to the dormitory floor.

The noise was clearer. They were cries. The heart-wrenching sobs of a child. He wanted to run, he wanted to run down those dark, dank, soul-crushing halls of a fallen dream and save the weeping child that had called to him from so far away.

He could move no faster.

He reached a door that was open a crack. The weeping was coming from inside. Slowly, he pushed the door open. The room was littered with scraps of canvas, broken paint jars and brushes. The walls were scorched and there was a moldy smell.

A girl was kneeling on the floor by the broken remains of the bed. She cried softly, much too soft for Magnus to have heard from so far. She was blond and petite.

Magnus walked in, the floors creaking as he walked across them. She turned and looked up at him. Her luminescent blue eyes sparkling with unshed tears. She was a beautiful young girl. She seemed to change from a child of six to a girl of thirteen and back again, aging and growing young in minutes.

She looked up at him sniffing. "He was all I had left. Why wouldn't you let me save him?" He only looked at her, not certain of what she meant. She touched his leg. "He died.. and you didn't help him. He helped you!! He saved you!" He felt a mass of confusion as she touched him. He pulled away, but she came after him. Her cries louder and more desperate. "Peter saved you, now it's your turn. Teach!! Help me!! Please!!"

Magnus sat up again, drenched in sweat. Looking at his bedside clock he noticed he had gotten a few more hours of sleep. "5:33," he mumbled. He stared at the ceiling of his bunk, hearing Remy's breath above him slow and steady, and decided that he had slept enough. He crawled out of bed and tip-toed quietly to the door. He checked over his shoulder once to make sure he hadn't disturbed Remy's sleep amazed that his Cajun friend seemed to be at peace.

The waves threw the first light of the sun into the air turning the ocean into a field of sparkling jewels. Magnus leaned on the railing of the boat's deck and watched as the sun rose. He could see fish darting around the boat as he looked into the water and he wondered what must have happened to him to leave all of this for some unknown cause.

"Good morning, Magnus," Lee's voice interrupted his reverie. He straightened abruptly and turned to her.

"I'm sorry," she smiled. "I didn't mean to disturb you, how long have you been up?"

"Not very," he replied, turning back to the endless ocean. "I just woke up and decided to come out here. This is the first sunrise I've ever seen."

"That you remember," she put in.

"Yes."

"And?" Lee stepped closer, leaning on the railing next to him. "What do you think?" "It's beautiful. It's very beautiful. There is a wonderful sense of solitude out here. It certainly inspires introspection."

"If you have the time for it," Lee replied.

"Some of us have so much work to do we tend to forget about the beauty of it all."

"That's a shame."

Lee looked at him, puzzled. He felt her eyes on him again and shifted uncomfortably. Remy never looked at him this way, and neither did Brett. Lee was always looking at him as if she expected him to change colors before her eyes.

"How long do you think this trip will be?" He asked suddenly.

"Oh, I don't know, a week maybe two, depends on how the currents are."

"Do you think by the time we get to this place that you might be able to look at me without that shocked, surprised, foreign look anymore?"

Lee turned scarlet. "I'm sorry, it's just, I never thought..." she sighed. "You're different and it's very hard for me to adjust. I had resigned myself to your behaving a certain way and now you aren't. It takes some getting used to."

"Remy and Brett don't do seem to be bothered by it."

"They never knew you like I did."

He turned to face her, "And how was that?"

She flushed an even deeper red, "Very well."

She looked away, her expression closed. "Please excuse me, I have a great deal to do."

Magnus watched her walk away and wondered just how much this woman had invested in him.

"Mornin' mon ami," Remy's raspy morning voice interrupted Magnus' late morning coffee.

"LeBeau, you finally dragged your sorry carcass out of bed?"

Remy laughed loudly, "The way you talk, Lensherr." He arched his back stretching and found a chair to sit in, crossing his ankles and grinning good-naturedly into the sunlight.

Magnus regarded his friend with a pleased eye, "Brett agrees with you," he smiled. "I haven't seen you smile in the morning for as long as I've known you."

"What you expect, Lensherr, when all I got to look forward to is your ugly mug?" He looked around. "Speaking of de most beautiful woman in de world, where she be hidin'?"

"Look around, LeBeau, I should think she would be easy to spot," he cocked an eyebrow. "Even for you."

Sunny laughter punctuated this statement followed by Rogue popping up from the side of the deck, hovering in the air slightly and then diving again. Remy stood and went over to the side to see what she was doing.

Rogue flew just above the water, reaching down and cutting the water with her hands. Her laughter bounced across the waves and disappeared into the horizon. Remy leaned on the rails and smiled.

<Ain't nothin' so beautiful as my Brett laughing and smiling,> he thought.

"Oh," Magnus cooed. "What could Remy be thinking? I know, 'I think my girlfriend is so sweet. Is anyone as lucky as me?'"

Remy turned around, "Perdon, M'siuer? You wouldn't be jealous, would you? But of course, I am all dat my lady could want, while you are just an overgrown refrigerator magnet."

Rogue came drifting down from the sky then, resting her arms softly around Remy's neck. "You boys, am Ah gonna have t'separate y'all again?"

Remy kissed her cheek. "I'll behave, cherie. Don' you fret."

Rogue slapped him lightly on the chest. "Don't you threaten me, Cajun."

Lee watched the three mutants laugh and joke and wondered what the world would think if they could only see them this way. She remembered laughing with her friends in high school in much the same way. <Idiots,> she thought. <So much fear, for so little. I look at these three people and I am envious. Why? Because they are close. They trust each other and they have a few perks that might make life a little more interesting.>

She shook her head and smiled at the sky, thinking she was pretty happy to feel as though she were living again.

Magnus sobered suddenly, standing and looking at Remy in all seriousness. "We need to talk," he said brusquely.

Remy caught the look and immediately disentangled himself from Rogue's arms. The two men retreated to the stern.

Rogue sighed and drifted up to where Lee sat at the wheel. "Boys' time out, Ah guess," she smiled.

Lee smiled back, not commenting on Rogue's obvious disappointment in being excluded again.

"It's been a while, Rogue. Or should I call you Brett?"

"Ah answer to either one, sugah," Rogue pulled a baseball cap over her wavy hair. "Really, whichever you feel comfortable with. And it *has* been a while. Have you been takin' care of yourself? You sure look like it."

Lee laughed, "Thanks, I'm flattered. Especially when it comes from you, but you X-women have always been gorgeous."

Rogue smiled, "Not always, Ah remember goin' through my awkward phase with the team."

"Apparantly before my time," Lee checked her instruments.

Rogue looked at Remy and Magnus speaking in low tones, both looking very serious. "Ah can't tell you how happy Ah am to see Remy connectin' like this."

Lee remained silent, believing Rogue's admission to be personal.

"He didn't connect with anyone on the team, 'cept for Storm. He loves her.. but as far as the men." She shook her head. "He's needed this." She continued quietly.

"How have you been sleeping?" Magnus asked.

Remy cocked an eyebrow. "Y'know, at de beginnin' not so well. Now, I sleep pretty sound. I still have de bad nights, but dey less den before."

Magnus nodded, "Good. Good."

"You haven't."

The remark shocked Magnus for a moment. "How would you know?"

"You share a bike wit' a man, you get t'know him," Remy replied with a grin. "'Sides, I see dat look, I know it. I wore it. What's been buggin' you, hmm?"

Magnus leaned against the railing, "I had a dream last night. It wasn't a nightmare, I don't think. It puzzled me more than anything." He related his dream to Remy slowly, the dark hallways, the beautiful blond child, the plea for help.

Remy scratched his chin, staring at the deck floor. "Dat's weird, mon ami, dat's very weird." "Do you have any idea what it could be? You wouldn't believe the effect this dream had on me, I feel I should know this child and why did she change from teen-ager to child so often? Why did she ask me to help her? Can I?"

"I don' t'ink so, Lensherr. She dead."

Magnus reeled back a step from this announcement. "Dead?" He shook his head feeling the same despair he had felt when he remembered Douglas. "Another one?!!" He yelled.

Remy jumped at the sudden burst of anger from his friend. He opened his mouth to talk, but Magnus raged on cutting Remy off before he had a chance to speak.

"How many more can there be?! How many? Everyone I ever remember is DEAD!!"

Remy stole a glance at the deck where Rogue and Lee were. Rogue was looking down on them, eyes wide and questioning. He shook his head at her briefly, mentally asking her not to interfere just yet. She caught his meaning and nodded very briefly, but she continued to watch them from above, ready, just in case.

Magnus grabbed Remy's shoulders, "What the hell is the point of this trip, LeBeau?" His voice a ragged whisper. "All I have known, all I have ever remembered is people dying. Everyone I know seems to die and they are mostly children!" He looked up at the sky, his eyes glittering. "Children," he whispered.

His head dropped and he sucked in his breath, still clutching Remy's shoulders.

Remy just stood there for a moment, feeling Magnus' injured soul wash over him in an all too familiar way. Part of him saw something very amusing in the fact that he, Remy LeBeau, the screw-up X-Man was the one who Magneto was leaning on for support.

But all ironies aside, Remy had long since developed a deep fondness for Magnus, akin to brotherhood. For all of the times that he had had his families robbed from him, at birth, in New Orleans and even now with Sinister dogging his steps, making him leave a home he had fought so hard for, Remy cherished the feel of it. His family now, was Brett and Magnus.

"Not ev'rybody die, Magnus."

Magnus looked up, eyes red. "What do you mean? They do, they are *all* gone."

"I'm here." Remy clapped a hand on Magnus' forearm.

Magnus straightened and dropped his hands from Remy's shoulders. "Maybe you shouldn't be."

Remy coughed out a harsh laugh, "Where am I gon' go, Lensherr?" He spread his arms out, gesturing to the endless ocean. "Even so, I'm here, I not leavin' not for not'ing. You 'member *dat*, mon ami."

Magnus' face was devoid of emotion, "Then maybe I should leave,"

Remy's eyes widened as he realized what Magnus was doing. In a split second he had closed the gap between them, grabbing Magnus' shirt into his fist. Moments later, a magnetic bubble had enclosed them.

"You not leavin' wit'out me, bro," Remy's voice was raw. "We in on dis toget'er. We either both stay or we both leave. You got me?"

Magnus stared at Remy for a moment. He was more than a little impressed with the speed that Remy had exhibited in latching onto him. The magnetic bubble was almost instantaneous. There was more, though. The fact that Remy had made it clear that if Magnus left, he would leave too, even after finding Brett again, spoke volumes. Magnus found himself feeling less angry and more hopeful. He dropped the bubble and clapped his hand around Remy's wrist. "Together, then."

"And that there?" Rogue pointed into the starry sky, "The one that looks like a squished 'W'?"

Remy followed her arm with his eyes, "I see it."

"That one's Cassiopeia."

"Who was that?"

"She was the wife of the King of Ethiopia in Greek mythology, her daughter Andromeda was supposed to be sacrificed to a sea monster but Perseus saved her. That's Andromeda over there." Rogue moved her arm and pointed out another constellation.

"How you know so much about stars, cherie?" Remy rubbed his hands down her arms as she reclined against him.

"Ah've always loved the stars," she replied. "When Ah was a little girl the stars used to shine so bright where Ah grew up, Ah used to run around outside tryin' to jump up and catch them."

"Couldn't see the stars too well in the city," Remy mused.

They were silent for a few moments.

"That was quite a scene with you and Magnus earlier."

"Yeah," Remy's voice was distant.

"Would you really have left?" There was a slight quaver in her voice.

"Yes."

Rogue was silent, gritting her teeth and blinking hard. She felt cold inside and almost didn't feel Remy's breath on her neck.

"I know I be safe, Brett," he whispered. "I know I find you again."

The coldness went away slightly. "How do you know?"

"Brett, you come to me and you tell me dat you want to be with me. You don't flinch from me anymore, you smile when you see me and you turn away the nightmares. How could I be leavin' you for good? I always find a way back to you."

She sat up and faced him, her eyes still a little skeptical. "Remy, how do Ah know for sure?"

"Guess you don't," he answered, reaching forward and picking up a lock of her hair. "You, Brett, are like gossamer in my life. You shimmer and shine and spread light in all the dark places. You like a crystal in my soul, taking the little bit of light and spreading it everywhere 'til even I b'lieve dat I can walk the straight and narrow." He leaned forward and kissed her hands. "How can I live wit'out you now, Brett?"

Rogue lifted his face to hers. "You don't have to." She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. The stars continued to dance above them, but they were oblivious.

"You aren't dead," Magnus looked at Lee curiously.

"Very observant," she remarked dryly.

He shook his head, "No, you don't understand how important that is. You see, most of what I have remembered is death. People I loved dying, people I knew dying, everybody that came into my life seems to have died." He looked at her, his eyes serious. "You are still alive."

Lee nodded.

"What happened between us?"

Lee wasn't sure she wanted to relate the tale, but she found herself sifting through the memories anyway. It was obvious that Magnus needed to know. "We were in love once," she told him, looking out across the dark waters. "At least, I believed so."

"Weren't you sure?"

"I was as sure as I could be," she smiled. "You see, you weren't the type to just come out and say 'I love you', you just weren't that free with something as fragile as your emotions. You still aren't, I can see that."

"I suppose," he answered thoughtfully.

"Except you seem very open with Remy," she continued.

Magnus waved a hand dismissing it, "That's

different."

"How so?"

"Remy is my other self. Talking to him about things is as easy as thinking about it. We're the same, really, so I don't feel as though I'm risking anything."

Lee looked towards where Remy and Rogue had retreated. The shadows embraced the two young lovers and all that could be seen of them were their indigo silhouettes. "I wouldn't have thought it. He doesn't seem like the noble, loyal type."

Magnus glanced briefly towards Remy's direction and grinned, "You can never tell." He turned back to Lee. "He was always honest with me, he didn't try to judge me and he didn't try to save me from myself. He's the closest thing I have to family right now."

"I remember a time when your cause was the most important thing to you."

Magnus shook his head and stared into the

inky waters, "I don't have a cause. I'm just trying to make a connection. I want things to make sense. So little does anymore. If nothing else, I want something I can point to and say 'That's who I was, this is who I am.' It's hard walking around with no past. It's like I'm treading water and the sharks are coming, it's pretty desperate."

Magnus straightened suddenly, looking over the waters. In his mind he flashed to the sea in the middle of the afternoon, he saw the fins circling him. He felt something pulling him up. He remembered looking into the face of a blond woman, who looked as shocked as he had felt. He turned to Lee and reached forward hesitantly, touching her hair. Her blond hair.

"You saved me," he whispered. "I remember. I was drowning, and there were sharks there and you saved me."

Lee stared up at him, her throat constricted.

Wordlessly she nodded.

"That's how it all started, that's how we started," he continued.

She let out a shaky laugh. "Yes, that's right." She looked into his ice blue eyes and felt herself trembling. "God, I was so in love with you."

Magnus let his finger trace the line of her jaw, "I know. I remember."

 

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