Show Me The Way To Go Home
In the Kitchen of Shinobi Shaw's Swiss chalet, having seen The New Warriors leave, Cable and Domino now face some slightly difficult choices, regarding a rather difficult young woman.
"Paige, we have to talk. I know how hard it is to make the right choice at your age." Cable says.
"Not that I mean to be rude, Mr. Cable, but you're as subtle as an anvil. After everythin' we all just went through, the Upstarts an' the Gamesmaster, everythin' I just saw. You expect me to go back to the ol' Guthrie Farm, pretty as you please? I don't think so, Sir." Paige tells him.
"Perhaps it's because of everything that just happened that we'd prefer you did go home, Paige." Dom explains.
"Miss Domino, Ma'am, you know as well as I do that I have to start learnin' how to use these mutant powers that I have. Or would you rather the proposition I made come true an' Gamesmaster or, what did Sam call him...Stryfe, or any one of 'em were responsible for developin' me into what they wanted?" Paige asks.
"Your points well made, Paige and your implications about as subtle as mine. It's just that, quite frankly, I don't know if I have the equipment or the disposition to properly train you." Cable lies to the girl, remembering Mrs. Guthrie's pleas for him not to take her daughter away.
"Who ever said anythin' about me wantin' you to do it, Sir?" Upon seeing the shocked look on Cable's face, Paige quickly adds, "Uhm...no offense meant, or nothin' but I was talkin' about Charles Xavier."
"Oh...well..it's still not a decision you should make so quickly. Sam and Tabitha will be staying in Kentucky for a while yet, you can discuss your decision with him and your mother and then decide what you'd like to do. Speaking of which, I'd say it's high time we got back there. I'd hate for your mother to have to explain the PAC-RAT in her back yard to the local authorities." Cable says.
Back in Kentucky, Cable and crew find a message flagged on the PAC-RAT's communications board. Dom enters the decryption code and turns to tell Nathan the news.
"Nate, it seems as if Scott and Jean have just announced their wedding. There's a invitation for all of us and a separate message flagged for you." Dom tells him.
Amid the cheers of the kids, excepting 'Star who retains his usual stern demeanor, Dom sees Nathan's expression cloud over with a strange faraway look that she's never seen before.
"I'll check it when we get home." He tells her as he fires up the PAC-RAT's and lifts off.
After a brief stop in Guadalajara, Mexico for Rictor to visit a cousin in the hospital, X-Force arrives home. Dom corners Nathan alone after he's read the message from his father.
"Nate, what's wrong?" Dom asks.
"Nothing. I'm fine." Nathan tells her and starts to walk away. Dom grabs his arm and pulls him back, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Oh no, Big Guy, you don't get off that easy. Why do you always get so distant when family matters come up?" She asks.
"I've had a...complicated family life. You know that, Dom." Nathan replies softly.
"I do, but you'd think what with everyone, finally, knowing the truth and with Scott and Jean getting married, that you'd lighten up a bit." She says, hugging him tighter.
"I'm trying. I really am...it's just not as easy as I thought it would be." He tells her.
"What did your message say...or should I ask?" She asks softly.
"Scott wants me to be his 'Best Man' can you believe it?" Nathan asks sarcastically.
"Yes, I can. You're his son, Nate. At least he's making an effort to reach out to you." She tells him.
"Too little, too late." Nathan tells her, pulling away from her embrace and putting all his weapons on the table. "Put these away, would you? He's also invited me to his bachelor party tonight."
"And your going?" Dom asks hopefully.
"Not a snowball's chance, Dom. I'm going to Body-Slide over to Xavier's and catch him before he leaves if I can." Nathan replies.
"Nate, what are you going to do? Don't spoil this chance, Nate. If you do, you'll regret it the rest of your life. Please, if you're not going to wish him the best and join in his happiness, don't go at all." Dom pleads.
"There's some things I need to get clear with him, that's all. I'll be back shortly." Seeing the worry on her face, Nathan goes over and embraces her, taking her chin in his hand and tilting her face up to meet his, he kisses her and says, "It'll be alright, promise. Have Professor make up a pot of coffee. I'll be right back."
"Okay, but behave yourself." Dom tells him.
"I always do, don't I? Don't answer that. Professor: Body-Slide by One: Mansion Danger Room Coordinates." Nathan orders and an instant later, Dom is alone in the room.
Your name is Scott Summers, you hear the alarms ring loud throughout the nearly deserted mansion. As you rush out into the hallway you meet the only other X-Man currently in the building.
"Aye, an' isn't this just the way it always is? We've one foot out the door, off t' meet the others at yuir bachelor party, only t' have the bleetin' danger Room intruder alarm start wailin' away!" Banshee tells you.
"You know as well as I do, Sean, this is one of the most secured areas of the mansion. It is technically, virtually impregnable! Which means if someone has come calling on the X-Men we have to be prepared for anything!" You reply.
Your personal experience with 'anything' has encompassed, it seems, everything. Up to and including hordes of rampaging evil mutants, platoons of pangalactic invaders and alternative reality clones of your future self. So, while yes you've encountered much since the day you became the first X-Man, are you man enough, are you brave enough...to confront your own past? Specifically, that night on Earth's Moon, when you were called upon to sacrifice your only begotten son, Nathan Christopher Summers. Although this is a memory you've relived in your heart a thousand, thousand times, you're nonetheless overcome by a sense of violation at seeing this most intimate of moments displayed utilizing the Danger Room's holographic technology.
"When he's cured, you'll bring him back?" You see yourself ask the Askani' in the holographic images which are as real as life.
"No. The energies required to establish and maintain such a portal are beyond the capability of all save one. If you and he embrace this path of destiny, Cyclops, he will be lost to you forever." You see and hear the Askani' tell you.
"Lad, is this...this how it happened?" Banshee asks you.
"God help me...yes. This is exactly what happened." You reply.
Maybe not exactly. True, the Shi'Ar technology that manages to bend light and sound with near impossible results, creates a holographic display capable of transporting you back into the past, but there is so much more that it is incapable of relating. A portrait of agony without the agony. For this is the moment of your greatest disappointment. The failure of the primary responsibility to your own son.
"Computer: Abort Sequence: NOW!" You shout, your voice ragged with pain and you let that pain show, a rarity in your life.
SEQUENCE TERMINATION NOT WITHIN PROGRAM PARAMETERS. NON-TRAINING SCENARIOS NECESSITATE MANUAL OVER-RIDE ON ANY...
"Fine! One way or another I want this hologram shut down!" You shout, as you raise your ruby quartz glasses and blast the over-ride button.
So what if it might be a bit of overkill. It might have been just as easy to walk across the room and turn it off. It feels good to lash out. Good, yet hollow.
"One minute we're knee deep in the past. The next we're standin' in the center of an empty room. Ye ever get the feelin' that our lives get a wee bit more complicated than they need to be?" Sean asks you.
He means it as a joke, but you've never been a big fan of humor-as-a-coping-mechanism. Have you?
"Computer: Who activated this particular program?" You ask.
"That would have been me. Your prodigal son...several centuries removed." Cable says from behind you.
More jokes. As if making light of tragedy, somehow makes that tragedy easier to bear. It does not.
"I realize you people were on your way out the door, but I was hoping you could spare a moment, Cyclops. To talk." Your son says.
You've only seen this man a half dozen times in your life. As always, his is a presence that cannot be denied, but you can tell immediately that there's something different about him, this time. The fact that, for the first time in your memory, he is wearing no weapons. He's come in peace.
"After all the corrupting ye've done of me daughter in recent weeks, I'll gladly talk to ye. With me fists!" You hear Sean threaten your son.
"Banshee, don't!" You order, more for Sean's sake than Nathan's. You have little doubt of the outcome of a battle between these two. "Sean, please. Go on to the party without me. I'll be along as soon as I can. This is personal."
"That's one way of putting it." Your son says.
You realize you should admonish him for breaching mansion security, no doubt having 'Body-Slided' as he calls teleportation, his way inside, but for this moment you're more than the leader of the X-Men. You're a man. You're a Father.
You discovered, recently, something you had long ago suspected. That this man before you is your son and while you'd never admit it to yourself, any more than would he, you both hope, in your heart of hearts, that today might begin the healing. That somehow, words alone might bridge the gap between the centuries. That, for this moment, at least, conflict might give way to compassion.
"I got the invitation to the wedding. So, tell me, what'd you have in mind? You were expecting me to carry the rings? I came to say if you're so eager to make amends for dumping your only son some two thousand years into the future, you're going to have to start small. Maybe a baseball game. A stroll in the park." You son tells you with more than a touch of bitterness in his voice.
"I hardly 'dumped' you, Nathan. Letting go of you was the most difficult decision I'd ever made in my life. I was your father, and that meant doing anything in order to save you from the techno-organic virus that was destroying you. Anything, up to and including losing you to Askani' who apparently kept her word." You reply.
"Save it, 'Dad' we both just saw the holographic simulation. You made the choice as dispassionately as every other command you've ever given in your life! You're the consummate leader, always going with your first, best instinct and never looking back. Never once questioning your decision, or the impact it would have on the life of someone who lo...The impact it would have on my life!" You cannot believe that you can actually see unshed tears in this man, your son's eyes. You never thought him capable of shedding tears or any softness at all.
"Is that what you think? Do you honestly believe a day has past that I haven't wondered if I'd done right by you?" You ask.
"You didn't look all that shaken up in the hololog." Your son replies.
"Computer:" You say softly.
ACKNOWLEDGED.
"Open personal log, Summers: Entry: Nathan Christopher." You order.
ACCESSING
"Is there a point to all of.."
"Shut up." You tell him.
RUNNING: AUDIO/VISUAL ENGAGING.
You see yourself sitting on the edge of the bed. Jean sits, with her legs curled beneath her, behind you rubbing you shoulders.
"We've all been through a lot in the past thirty-six hours." You hear her say.
"All the more reason I need to update X-Factor's files. While the details are fresh in my mind. Computer: Continue: With Apocalypse reduced to cinder, we were operating under the misconception we had won. At this point, it was clear that the virus ravaging Nathan Christopher's body would ultimately....kill him..It was necessary for me to.....I relinquished control over the child....in order to...Strike That. It was at this point I...g-g-gave up...m-my...I....." You see yourself fall to the floor, crying uncontrollably.
"Scott?" You see Jean trying to comfort you.
"God forgive me." You hear yourself sob.
"Don't do this to yourself. You can't blame yourself for what happened. You did what you had to do in order to--"
"I'm his FATHER!! When he needed me most, there was nothing I could do to protect him! Every day of my life, I risk everything to save a world full of people who hate and fear us! Yet when it come to saving my only son, I'm USELESS!! I failed Nathan! I should have DIED before I gave him up!! Because it hurts too much to go on without him!" You watch yourself break down and begin to cry, once again, as you did that whole night, while Jean held you.
"Computer: End Personal Log." You order.
You watch your son stand silent for five full minutes, before he speaks.
"I wish I could say that this makes everything different. Better. But I'm sorry. This doesn't change anything." He, finally, tells you.
"No. I don't imagine it would." You reply, knowing full well that you're both lying through your teeth. You can see that, indeed, everything has changed. The way he stands, his voice, his eyes all silently shout 'I understand' and you, just as silently, accept his understanding.
Suddenly, a hologram of Sabretooth appears before you both.
"Cyclops, just thought you'd want to know you got company!" Sabretooth tells you.
"Sabretooth?! Here at the mansion?!" Your son asks.
"It's a long story." You tell him.
"Better tell it quick then. 'Cause right now someone's traipsing around our humble abode with enough personal armaments strapped to his body to turn this place into a parking lot! Not that I'd even bring it up if I didn't live here an' all." Sabretooth informs you.
"How could you possibly know this when the mansion security hasn't alerted us?" You ask.
"There are loads n' loads o' ways to fool computers, One-Eye. T'ain't possible to hide from ole' Sabretooth. Ask anybody." Sabretooth replies.
"Where's the intruder?" You ask.
"Med Lab, and Boy's, happy hunting, y' hear." You hear Sabretooth laugh.
In the Med Lab, you find the mutant assassin known as the X-Cutioner, preparing to kill Emma Frost, better known to some as the White Queen, formerly of the Hellfire Club.
There have been many other X-Men over the years who might have begun this confrontation with some cryptic warning, perhaps a witty opening statement of intent. But that's not your way, is it, Cyclops?
When you use the awesome power of your optic blasts against another living being, even one with this X-Cutioner's penchance for seemingly random acts of death and violence against your people, you are more than content to let your actions speak for themselves.
Your blast knocks X-Cutioner into and through the far wall of the Med Lab.
"Scott Summers, I presume?" X-Cutioner asks, as he pulls himself from the rubble of the wall.
"Far be it from me to tell anyone how to run the X-Men, but when the bad guys start showing up in the middle of the night, carrying on like everyone's on a first name basis, I think it's time you seriously consider changing the locks on the front door." You hear you son say with a grin, from your right side.
"I'll take that under advisement, Son." You reply.
How odd it feels, to be charging into battle with a son. With your son by your side. Yes, odd, but vaguely familiar at the same time. A familiarity that comes, no doubt, through the realization that this is how it should be. That all the sacrifices, all the soul searching, the second guesses and what ifs have all lead to this moment. A moment when the first X-Man and, arguably, the last are joined together in battle against a common enemy. Whether you stand or fall, win or lose this particular confrontation, you realize you're entering into it as something more than mere comrades. You're entering it as father and son, as family and ,suddenly, you start feeling very badly for the X-Cutioner.
"Allow me?" Your son asks.
"Certainly." You reply, suddenly happier than you've any right to feel during a battle.
"In a very short amount of time, X, you've been one busy mutant hunter." Your son says, as he steps forward and grabs X-Cutioner and pulls him up and the rest of the way out of the rubble. "You've executed Tower in Central America, took a stab at Mastermind in Scotland and now the White Queen right here in Westchester. For a new kid, you seem to get around."
"To be honest, Cable?" You hear X-Cutioner ask your son.
"Always." Your son replies.
"I couldn't have done it without you." X-Cutioner says, as he teleports out of your son's grasp and re-appears behind you.
"What the..? You're Body-Sliding?" You hear your son ask.
"Piggy-Backing, actually. Anywhere you go, Cable. I have the option of following." X-Cutioner says from behind you.
Before, even you can react your son picks up a huge section of the wall and smashes it into the X-Cutioner embedding him into yet another wall.
"Cable?! Since when are you this strong?" You ask, amazed at your son's strength.
"You want the real answer, or the flippant one?" Your son asks laughing, he's actually laughing.
"Real." You reply.
"You're in luck. It's the same answer. When I have to be, Pop, when I have to be." He tells you.
"Cover me, while I check on Emma. While most of her injuries are psionic in nature, the damage to her body has required constant monitoring. If that's disrupted..." You begin to say.
"She'd die, I suppose. And? Isn't this the same woman who tried to kill the X-Men on more than one occasion?" He asks you.
"Precisely" X-Cutioner says, as he slowly rises from the rubble, "More than reason enough to die at the hands of--"
You strike as one, your optic blast along with your son's telekinetic blast and, just as you predicted, the X-Cutioner never stood a chance.
"Five will get you ten he teleports out of here before we get a chance to put him down for good." You son says.
"You're on." You reply.
Before the words are completely out of your mouth, X-Cutioner teleports out.
"What'd I tell you? You owe me five." You son says, laughing yet again.
You turn to check on Emma and make sure she is stable.
"Again with this woman. Tell me, Scott, why do I get the impression that even if the X-Cutioner guy had stayed, if he were hurt, you'd be looking after him, too?" You son asks.
"The day we stop showing compassion for our enemy, Nathan, is the day we become the enemy." You tell him.
"Hmmm. Where have I heard that before?" Your son replies with a very knowing look on his face.
"I wouldn't know. Look, about what we were saying before--" You begin.
"That was before. In fact, my whole life past, present and future was before. During most of that time I resented the thought of you not being the person I imagined you'd be when I was a kid. Turns out, you've been that person all along. A person I'm proud to know, and prouder still to be able to call you my father. For the record, I never hated you. All I ever wanted was to know that you were angry. That you were half as hurt as I was that we were separated. I guess like any other son, I wanted to think you missed me." You son tells you.
"I missed you every day of my life, Nathan, and every day of yours. I would have done anything to have been able to step across time, to hold you in my arms, to protect you, to teach you the things a father is supposed to teach his son." You tell him, as you notice a strange look come across his face. As if he wants desperately to tell you something and can't.
"For what it's worth. There was someone like that. A couple actually whose names I can't remember at the moment. I wasn't always alone." He tells you, still with that look of wanting to say more.
"The last thing the Askani' said to me...do you remember her words? 'If you and he embrace this path of destiny, he will be lost to you forever.' I'm glad she was wrong." You tell him.
"Look, we could do all this male bonding, drum beating, huggy, feely stuff all night, but I got a life to get back to and you're late for your own bachelor party. I'm Body-Sliding out of here. Can I drop you anywhere?" He asks.
You accept his offer and in a blinding flash of light, a momentary feeling of disembodiment and you suddenly find yourself in the strangest place of all...among friends.
"Hey, everyone, are we late?" You ask.
"'We' Fearless Leader? You didn't start on the brews without us did you, Scott?" Bobby asks you.
"Did I say 'we'? I guess...I was wrong." You reply, looking around for your son.
You feel it in your heart before you feel the crumpled paper in your hand. He must have handed it to you during transit. More than just an acknowledgement that he'll be joining you on your wedding day. It's an affirmation that the day will be fraught with promise of a better life. Not only between man and wife, but perhaps, between Father and Son, as well.
Our Journey Continues With
Nimrod
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