All Good Things
Chapters 21 through 23
by
Liz Collins



Disclaimer: No, I don't have permission to use Marvel's characters. Yes, I used them anyway. You'll have to stand in line to sue me, so don't even bother. This story is purely the product of my overactive imagination. :)




CHAPTER 21

It was almost three years to the day after Cyclops' death, when Cerebro picked up the same kind of strange readings they had gotten when the strange flash had occurred previously. The team was able to determine that the readings were coming from another site, out in the middle of nowhere, in an underground location underneath a Kansas wheat field.

Jubilee and Wolverine went to investigate. After poking around the site, they suddenly found themselves in a kind of underground tunnel.

"Where are we and what happened?" asked Jubilee, shaking her head dizzily.

Wolverine sniffed the air. "Underground. Must have been teleported or somethin'."

"Weird," said Jubilee, as they cautiously made their way down the hall into another larger room, brightly lit. Lights blinked, monitors sparkled, and there were small whirring machine noises. "Wow, check this out! It's some kind of mega-computer station."

"Actually, it's a inter-dimensional transporter coordination station," said a cheerful male voice. They both turned around instantly. They came face to face with a tall, gangly young man in a grey coverall and lab coat. He was rather ordinary-looking, except for the wild shock of orange hair that stood up all over his head.

"Who are you?" Wolverine growled, claws unsheathed.

"Temper, temper!" admonished the animated stranger. "You can't hurt me. I'm not even real. I'm a computer-generated hologram. Touch me. You'll see."

Jubilee tentatively fingered his coat. She gasped as her hand passed right through him.

"See? I told you so! I've been expecting you. What took you so long to get here?"

"We don't even know where "here" is and you still haven't answered my question. Who are you?" Wolverine had no patience to play games with the image, no matter who or what he was.

"Do I have to start from the beginning? I thought you'd have some idea since you showed up here right on schedule." He motioned for them to follow him farther down the consoles continued as far as they could see. "Although, I admit I was expecting all of you, not just two. This isn't a decision to be taken lightly, you know, and it does affect the group as a whole."

He stopped to fiddle with dials and switches every few feet, while Wolverine and Jubilee, not knowing what else to do, followed.

"What in the heck is he talking about?" Jubilee whispered to Wolverine. He shrugged. The hologram was babbling on uninterrupted, but had yet to tell them anything substantial. They finally approached two giant viewscreens, where the hologram stopped. He turned to them, impatiently.

"You do know there's been an inter-dimensional breach, don't you?"

"A what?" asked Jubilee, dumbfounded. She'd just about had it with the hologram's nonsensical technobabble.

"An inter-dimensional breach. Oh, you really don't know, do you?" he said almost sadly.

"Does it have somethin' to do with all the weird readings we tracked here?" asked Wolverine.

"Exactly!" squealed Hologram, as if to a small child who had just answered a difficult question correctly.

"Look, I don't care who ya are or what ya are. If you've got something to tell us, you'd better spill it now. What is this place? Ya said ya wanted us here. Why?"

Hologram leaned against the console. "As I said, this is an inter-dimensional transportation coordination station. It was--will be--built in your future as a joint effort between humankind and an alien race in order to study and travel to other dimensions and times."

"Why do I have this really bad feeling?" Wolverine asked Jubilee. "I've had enough of you time jockeys messing up things every time you get an itch," he said to Hologram, impatiently.

"Well, we're not time travelers per se, although we do travel through time. It's more of an inter-dimensional transportation, which of course, does involve warping the time-space continuum. But you wouldn't understand that."

"Get to the point." Wolverine lit a cigar. He had a feeling it was going to be a very long day. Some time ago, one of our time travelers had an accident while transporting from one dimension to another. Here," he said, pointing to a screen.

Jubilee gasped. "That's the day Cyclops got killed!"

"Exactly," said Hologram with satisfaction. "Actually, the explosion occurred .000002 microseconds before his actual death. It was at this point the inter-dimensional breach occurred. A dimension--your dimension--was fractured into two separate realities."

"Say what?" asked Jubilee incredulously.

"We haven't much time," answered Hologram impatiently. "Two separate realities were created as a result of the explosion. We just discovered the breach a few of your days ago when another traveler passed through this station and discovered the remains of the explosion. The fact is that the split is becoming extremely unstable. We have to repair the damage that was done."

"Can you do that?" Jubilee asked.

The Hologram nodded affirmatively.

"Whoa!" said Jubilee. "This is getting too weird for me! Beam me up, Scotty!"

"What do you need us for?" asked Wolverine. Jubilee had noticed he'd been uncharacteristically quiet during the whole exchange with Hologram, almost as if he'd had he some premonition about what was happening.

"You have to make a choice of which reality continues and which ceases to exist."

"Just what is the other so-called reality?" Wolverine asked suspiciously. He had a bad feeling about this, and he didn't like it. The hair on the back of his neck was starting to stand up and he knew from past experience that it wasn't a good sign.

"I can only show you ten years in past and future of each reality. I'm not authorized to go beyond that point, but it should be enough to facilitate your decision making process." He fiddled with more dials, and one of the viewscreens lit up.

"This is your present reality as it is and will be." The images moved so fast, the two could barely assimilate them, but the screen showed snatches of the events of the past ten years just as Wolverine and Jubilee both remembered them, including Cyclops's death. But then the images moved into what would be.

What he saw made Wolverine's blood turn to ice. Jean, laying in a hospital bed, wasting away, dying. It was unmistakable--the Legacy virus. He saw himself there by her side, and then saw himself and Jubilee laying flowers on her grave. He didn't bother to watch the rest. He felt like he'd been punched in the gut. He couldn't breathe and he was blinded by tears and rage.

"No!" he roared and slashed out at the console and the monitor. After a few minutes, he stopped and leaned against the wall and closed his eyes and the sparks flew and the machinery buzzed. He didn't want to look at anything or anyone. He felt Jubilee's hand on his elbow, felt her slip her arms around him.

"Oh, god, Wolvie. I'm so sorry," she breathed. He didn't want anyone to comfort him, but he didn't move. She was, after all, probably his closest friend. He didn't want to hurt her feelings. He opened his eyes when he realized Hologram was once again babbling in their ears.

"What do you want?" he growled.

"We've got to see the other one," whispered Jubilee. Hologram activated an undamaged viewscreen. The events of the first nine years were identical to the first presentation.

"Here's where the split occurred," explained Hologram. They saw the battle with the Sentinels, the blinding flash of light, and Cyclops emerging unharmed from the attack.

Jubilee's eyes grew wide. "Cyclops didn't die?" she asked in amazement. The images seemed to speed up as they passed into what was going to be, but several images were clear: Jean and Scott playing in the park with their children; they saw themselves and their team mates growing older; Jubilee saw herself pushing a baby stroller.

"Heavy," she breathed. "I'm going to be a mom," she said with a puzzled grin on her face.

"But, like, who's the dad?" Then she remembered Wolverine and Jean and sobered up.

"So," said Wolverine slowly, "Which was the "original" time line?"

"Neither is the "correct" time line," explained Hologram happily. "They're each equally viable."

"So, that's it? If Cyclops dies, Jean dies too? If he lives, so does she?" his voice was strained. Jubilee could only imagine what was going on inside his head. She herself was getting a headache thinking about it all.

"This is all I can show you," intoned Hologram.

"Why? How can Cyclops dying cause Jeannie to die years later? It just don't make any sense." He had managed to turn off his emotions enough to regain some clarity of thought.

"Cyclops' death was an accident, caused by the explosion. It might not affect it at all. It might affect it in some small way that is undetectable to our scan. Come, we must hurry. We only have a two-hour window to make the repairs."

The wheels were turning in Jubilee's head. "Now, wait just a doggone minute! If you terminate one reality, what happens to us in the other reality? Do we just go "poof" or what? Are we alive in the other dimension too?"

"Actually, you yourselves have been fractured along with the time line. When we make the corrections, you will also be merged back into your complete selves. You may retain memories of the other time line, but you might not."

"Major bummer," sighed Jubilee. "What about our other selves? Do they get to make the choice too?"

"Yes. There will be a majority rule. But only your two counterparts will be allowed to vote. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair."

Hologram stood, tapping his foot, impatiently.

"Can we have a few minutes?" asked Jubilee angrily. "Alone," she emphasized.

Wolverine found he simply couldn't stand up anymore. He plopped down on the floor a little too suddenly. He looked down and ran his hands through his hair. He wanted to tear something up, anything, but he just couldn't seem to make his muscles obey. Jubilee sat down beside him and fidgeted. She didn't know what to say.

"I just can't win for losing," he said sadly. She'd never seen him like this before. She hesitated for a moment and put a hand on his knee.

"Hey, Wolvie," she said quietly.

"Hmmm?" He didn't seem like himself at all to her.

"I'll let you decide what we do, okay? All I could tell is that in one reality I end up with a rug rat. I'll go with whatever you say."

"I don't really have much of a choice, do I?" he said angrily.

"No, really," she said. "I won't be upset either way. I know you love Jean. If you want to stay with her, I'll understand."

"God, Jubilee, d'ya think I could let her suffer like that just so I can be with her for a few years? I can't do it. I'd rather see her live out her life, the way she was supposed to, even if it isn't with me."

"Well, the future isn't carved in stone, is it?" Jubilee asked hopefully. "Maybe she won't die. Maybe they'll find a cure or something." she said, trying to be encouraging. "Maybe you'll find someone you love more than her. How do we even know this jerk-off's not just pulling our chain? How do we know this isn't some trick?" asked Jubilee, nervously twirling a strand of hair.

"I don't think so, kiddo. Jeannie's been having these weird nightmares ever since this whole thing started. It's suddenly starting to make sense. I think maybe she's been in telepathic communication with her other self, maybe with all our other selves."

When Hologram returned, Logan knew what he had to do.



CHAPTER 22

His whole body hurt. He felt like he'd been asleep for days. He sat up in bed. His bed. Well, where else would I be? he asked himself. An image flashed through his mind, an image of the big four-poster bed in Jean and Scott's room.

"Yeah, right," he said out loud as his feet hit the floor. He figured it must have been one hell of a party for him to have such a hangover. He was usually immune to the effects of too much alcohol. That was it. There must have been a woman there who reminded him of Jean. That must be why he was dreaming about her.

Usually he tried not to think about Jean, at least not in the way that he used to. She was a married woman now. He'd missed his chance. If I ever had one, he mumbled to himself as he stumbled to the bathroom.

He heard a heavy thumping on his bedroom door. "Wolverine! You gonna sleep all day or what? Get a move on! You were supposed to meet me in the Danger Room half an hour ago!"

Cyclops. He felt a sudden chill up his spine. This is wrong. Cyclops is dead. He wondered where that thought had come from. He started to wonder if someone slipped something in his drink at the party he couldn't seem to remember anything about. Or maybe he was finally losing his marbles once and for all.

He went through the morning (or was it the afternoon?) in a fuzzy haze. He just couldn't seem to shake the feeling of disorientation or quit thinking about the strange dream he had. He could only recall bits and pieces of it, but it seemed so real.

He really only started to suspect something something when he overheard Rogue and Storm admitting to feelings deja vu over coffee in the kitchen. He stopped to help himself to some coffee. Maybe it would help to clear his head.

As few minutes later Jubilee sauntered in. "Hey, Storm, Rogue, Wolvie." She didn't quite seem like her usual jubilant self. Wolverine looked at her and as their eyes met a sudden flood of images rushed into his head. Her eyes seemed to mirror his own, revealing a haunting uneasiness.

"Jubilee, we gotta talk." She followed him into the rec room without a word and plopped on the sofa.

"Whatsa matter, Wolvie?" she asked guardedly.

He looked at her hard for a moment. "Does anything seem weird to you today? Anything different?"

"You mean, like did I have some mondo nightmare about some wacky split dimension crap where you and I had to decide the fate of the universe?"

"Uh...yeah." He sat down suddenly. He almost missed the edge of the sofa.

Jubilee fiddled with her earrings. "It wasn't a dream, was it?"

"I don't think so." He tried to absorb all the images and feelings that were flooding his brain and fight the tightness in his chest.

"I don't think anyone else knows anything. Maybe we're the only two who know," Jubilee observed. "Isn't that what that Hologram dweeb said might happen?"

"Yeah." He sighed. "Jean--"

"Is married to Cyclops," Jubilee said quickly, raising her eyebrow at him. Wolverine momentarily gave her a disgusted look.

"I know that," he growled. "Does she know anything?"

Jubilee shrugged her shoulders. "I only saw her for a few hours this morning. She seemed okay What about you, Wolvie?"

"I'm fine!" he growled at her again.

"Well, excuuuuse me for caring. I'm outta here!" She bounced out the door.



CHAPTER 23

Logan rolled over on his stomach and stuffed the pillow under his chin. The summer breeze was rustling the leaves. He was thinking about Jean again. The merging of two sets of memories did help to deaden his feelings somewhat. After all, part of him (or was it another him?) had lived the past few years without her, but he still couldn't completely rid himself of the feeling of loss, his longing to hold her in his arms again.

He heard a faint tapping at the door. "It's open."

"Logan? I'm sorry to disturb you, but--" Jean was standing in the doorway.

"No, no. I'm decent; come on in." He sat up quickly and started toward to door. She came inside and closed it and stopped about a foot away from him. He knew something was up. She had a strange look on her face.

"What is it, Jean?" He was afraid to hear her answer. She was mysteriously quiet.

"Do you know where this came from?" She held up her right hand. He saw immediately that she was holding the flowery wedding band gingerly between her thumb and forefinger.

He looked down. His voice was stuck in his throat. All he could manage to say was "Oh, Jeannie." She leaned down until her face was even with his, forcing him to look at her.

"Did you give this to me?" her lip trembled as she spoke. She knew. There was no denying it now.

"Yes," he said quietly. "I was hoping you wouldn't remember."

She sighed. "I didn't until I saw it in my jewelry box yesterday. All these memories came to me, memories I didn't have before, memories I can't possibly have. Can I? What has happened?"

He explained to her briefly what he could remember about the other reality, about Cyclops's death, about the dimension split. He carefully avoided too many personal details.

Jean spoke carefully. "Then you and I had a relationship after Scott's death?"

"We were married, Jeannie."

"Oh, dear god. Then how? Why?" Jean was thoroughly confused. She crossed the room and sat down on the bed. He sat next to her wondering what to say next.

He started to put an arm around her shoulder, thought better of it, and did it anyway.

"Jean, you were gonna to die in the other reality, a painful death, before your time. When I had the choice I couldn't let that happen to ya, darlin'. Unfortunately for me, Wonder Boy came with the package."



CHAPTERS:   1 - 5   6 - 10   11 - 15   16 - 20   21 - 23




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