Sunday, New York City
----------------------------------
       The sandy haired man shifted on the leatherette couch.  "Is it
cold in here, or is it just me?" he smiled weakly.
       Doc Samson tapped his pen on the notepad in front of him.
"It's probably just you, Drake.  From what I hear, you were the first
one of the X-Men to hear the news.  Why don't you tell me about that?"

Last Tuesday
----------------------------------
       Bobby Drake, the world-famous superhero known as the Iceman,
looked in the mirror, and sighed deeply.  He ran fingers through his
hair, and sighed.  "I'll never get it right.  What the hell does
Gambit do to it to make it flop over his eyes like that, but not get
in his eyes?"
       He was interrupted in his thoughts by his mother's voice, calling
up the stairs. "Bobby!
It's that old girlfriend of yours, Lorna Dane on the phone!"
       He almost tripped coming down the stairs, and his mother clucked
disapprovingly.
       "If you ask me, son, that girl was trouble.  I mean, green
hair!"
       "Maddy! Leave my boy alone.  You know he's steady with that girl
he met last Christmas. What's her name? Caroline(1). "  His father
looked up from the TV.
       "Dad.  Mom.  It's probably X-Men stuff."
       "Well, remember that you can't go upstate tonight.  We're going
over to the church for the potluck, and I promised Mrs. Carrington
that you'd help set up."
       "Mom!"  Bobby put the phone to his ear. "Lorna, it's me.
Whazzup?"
       "It's... it's Alex, Bobby.  I... didn't know how to call Scott,
I need to talk to Scott."
       "Hang on a sec, Lorna.  What'd 'Lex do?"
       "He was trying to... there was this... We have some... he's, he's
dead. Bobby.  He died this morning.  And no one knows where Scott is...
and no one's answering at the mansion." (2)
       "Alaska. Hang, on, let me give you the number."  Bobby searched
through the bits of paper by the phone.  "Mom!  Where's Scott's and
Jean's number in Alaska?"
       "It's on the message board over your head, dear.  I cleaned
yesterday."
       "Thanks.  Lorna? It's area code 907, 555-6489. Yeah, I'll make
sure the mansion knows.  Where? Right.  See you there." He hung up
the phone, still a little stunned.
       "Robert William Drake, you are not flying off to Westchester.
Your father's still weak, and I need you to help move tables tonight."
       "Can't, Mom.  Gotta fly to Alaska."

----------------------------------

       "So she called you at home, Scott."
       "Huh?  Oh, yes, at home, Doctor Samson."
       "Call me Doc, or Samson, Scott.  Most of my patients find it
helps them relax."
       "I'd rather not, Doctor.  No offense meant, but I'm pretty much
full up on sympathy, and people showing me that they're my friends, and
wanting me to share.  I'd rather keep this professional, if it's all
the same to you."
     "If you wish."
     "I do.  I mean, I'm proud of my brother.  It sounds so cold to say
it, but he had a good death.  I don't think he would have been happy,
leaving this world any other way."
     "It's common to feel a sense of incompleteness.  A sense of
abandonment, especially between two brothers as competitive as you
were. Any of that?"
       "None.   I talked to him that morning.  You have no idea how
helpful that phone call is.  He..." Scott smiled faintly, "He threw me
out of an airplane the last time we met face to face.  And the morning
before... the event, he called to apologize.  I forgave him, and I
think we really felt good again, like I always wanted us to be.  It
sort of felt, unreal when I got the call.  Like my life was one
bizarre soap opera, gaining people only to lose them a few moments
later."
     "I think I'd like to go back to your feelings when you first
heard.  I want to explore your initial reactions, before you had
time to think about it.  Those feelings will be much truer,
     "When the call came Jean and I were just home from the hospital."
 
At the Summers' home in Alaska
----------------------------------
       "Are you sure you're all right?"
       "The doctors said I'll be fine.  It's just... quiet."
       "Can I get you anything."
       "Some space, lover.       I've spent the last few days in a
hospital, with everyone and their intern up to see 'Patient X,'
and I need a break.  I'm going to lie down in the bedroom."
       "Sure, dear.  I'll go finish up in the other room."  Scott
Summers, former X-Man, helped his wife up the steps and into the
house they rented.  Finally home from the hospital after her
mysterious catatonic collapse (3), Jean seemed to brighten up
the house.  Warren, Bobby, and Hank had headed back south after
it was clear that Jean  just needed some time to recover, and it
had been far too quiet in the house for Scott's liking.
       "You're watching me."  Jean had stopped at the door to their
bedroom, and had noticed that he hadn't moved.
       "Sure am."
       "Don't you trust me to know myself?  I said I was fine!"
       "Sure did."  But Jean's assurances wouldn't stop him from
making sure on his own.  She smiled then, and he knew that his
dependability was one of the foundations of their relationship, as
was his willingess to let her do things on her own.
       After making sure she was as steady as she claimed, he headed
back to the living room to finish winterproofing the house.  It
felt better in the house knowing that Jean was close by.  It wasn't
a function of a psionic link (which was gone, anyway), it wasn't a
resonance of mutant powers, but was love, pure and true.  What
could happen now?
       He had just picked up the sealant gun when the phone rang.
       "Honey?  Can you get that."  It took him a second to vocalize,
as he was still unused to a Jean without telepathy again. "Honey?"
       Grumbling slightly, he set the glue gun down carefully, and
headed for the end table, where the phone was still ringing.
       The glue dried on the end of the nozzle.  Cyclops wouldn't be
doing any more housework that day.

Sunday
----------------------------------
       "So, when you finally got in touch with Scott."
       "I had said it a couple of times, out loud.  It all started
to sound so unreal, you know?  I mean, I started to feel bad,
like I wasn't feeling rotten enough."
       "That's very common, Lorna.  If I remember, you felt
something similar with Jamie when we thought he was dead."
       "But I never... I wasn't close with Jamie, at least not as
intimate as I was with Alex.  I just felt, I don't know, free,
kind of.  Does that make me a bad person?"
       "Not at all.  It's very natural to have conflicting or
inappropriate emotions in times of great stress.  And we've
touched upon your emotional difficulties last session.  You have
a history of acting under someone else's mental influence since
you were a young adult : it's hard for you to express your own
emotional reactions."
       "Unlike Jean."

At the Mansion, Thursday
---------------------------------------------------
       "Jean?  Are you all right?"
       "N...No, Lorna."  The green-haired beauty steered the redhead
into the kitchen of the mansion, where everyone had gathered after
the funeral.  Jean sat, slumped, in a chair.
       "I didn't realize you and Alex were so close.  I mean, all
of us in DC used to think that you felt pretty much like Scott
did.  You kind of kept a distance from Alex since we took over X-
Factor."
       "Lorna, can you keep a secret?"
       "Sure, Jean."
       "I think I, sort of, had an affair with Alex."
       "WHAT?"
       "It's kind of hard to explain.  When Madeline Pryor died,
all of her memories were transferred into me.  I walled them off,
and it wasn't until the Phoenix Force helped that I was able to
integrate them with my own memories.  It was a really hard period
of time for me, and I tried to ignore a lot of what I was feeling.
Besides, as far as we knew, you were all dead."
       "So, what does that have to do with..."
       "After Dallas, the X-Men were living in Australia.  Peter,
Ororo, Rogue, Allison, Longshot, Logan..."
       "And Madeline.  Do you mean..."
       "Uh huh.  I don't really remember why I, er, she did it, but
she did.  And now I have those memories.  And no one who was in
Australia was with us in Inferno."
       "He never told me about that."
       'I doubt it was a moment he wants to remember.  There's even
a chance that the Siege Perilous, or something in Genosha, wiped it
from his mind, or..."
       "Does Scott know?"
       "No!  I couldn't tell him.  He'd want to talk about it, and
'work things out,' and I just wanted to push it away until I could
talk to Alex about it.  But then, he was so busy with X-Factor, and
then you two were so close, and then there was the whole Brotherhood
business..."
       "...And now you'll feel you'll never get the chance to resolve
things."
       "Exactly.  I feel so... "

Sunday, NYC
----------------------------------------
       "Cold."
       "Is that really what you feel, Betsy?"
       "Elizabeth, or Ms. Braddock.  No, I do actually feel a small
sense of loss.  But coldness is what people expect from me.  I may
not be able to read their minds anymore, but I can read their body
language.  Even you expect me to be aloof.  Warren and I missed the
funeral, and chose to spend it at my brother's wedding.  And we
didn't tell Piotr and Rahne until afterwards.  He had enough on his
mind."
       "Elizabeth, there's no need for this hostility.  I only want
to help."
       "Dr. Samson, I don't want to talk about Alex Summers.  I'm only
here to transport Rahne back across the ocean.  I mean, the last
time I had a chance to talk to him, was in Muir Island, after the
explosion.  That was ages ago, and it wasn't a pleasant conversation."
       "After... hang on one sec... after the Shadow King Incident.  Did
something happen there?"
       "No, not worth mentioning.  I mean, I beat him pretty badly
in the gladiatorial combat ring, but that wasn't it.  No, I think
he still resented the fact that I took the team away from him."
       "The Australian X-Men."
       "All of us who went through the Seige ended up changed, mostly for
the better.  I gained this new body and it's skills, Rogue was freed of
Carol Danvers, Peter got to paint, Alison got to be a star again, and
Longshot went home.  Alex?  Alex became a Magistrate.  I don't know why
he wished for that, but he did.  But I think he blamed me for it."
       "For his wish."
       "For forcing him through the Seige. I didn't give the X-Men much
choice in the matter."

Last Wednesday, Washington D.C.
---------------------------------------------------
       "Ah ain't givin' you no choice in the matter.  Bring 'em back."
Rogue held a gloved fist up, and it was shoved down.
      "We can't bring him back, Rogue.  He's gone.  _They're_ gone."
       "They?"
       "Didn't anybody tell you?"  Shard appeared, sitting perched on
the table.  "Two people died in the explosion.  We lost a friend, and
he was a lot closer to me than Havok.  So we've got our own grieving
to do here."
       "Ah didn't realize... Ah'm sorry."
       "Just go back to Xavier's, Rogue.  You're needed there."

Mojoworld, After Primetime, before Late Night.
------------------------
       "Honey?  We're getting a transmission feed from Earth. It's
addressed to us, marked personal."
       "Thanks, lover.  It's about...  Damn interdimensional static!"
       "I'll try to adjust the reception..." A four-fingered hand danced
over the keyboards, and the message snapped into focus.
       The two mutants that ruled Mojoworld could only stand in shock.
They held each other tightly.
       "Ali?"
       "Um?"
       "This would be a good point to pray now, right?  That he be
recycled in some other world, and not be canceled for ever."
       "If only real life was that easy, luv.  But sure, we can pray."

Last Saturday, New Mexico's Painted Desert
---------------------------------
       After the funeral, Lorna still clutched the little metal urn
that had held the ashes.  If she looked, she imagined she could still
see them, fluttering out over the landscape.  He had wanted to be laid
to rest here, where they were happy.  Despite the fact that she had
gotten over him before he...  before the explosion, she was surprised
to feel lonely.  An arm came around her waist, and she smelled cheroot.
       "Ain't not one of us, darlin', that ain't gonna die someday,"
Logan snorted, and stubbed out the cheroot with his boot. "'Cept maybe
Jeannie, but there's always an exception."
       "So you're telling me to get on with it?  To accept and move on
gracefully?"
       "Hell no!  I came over to tell ye that I'm takin' a few days to
head down to a bar Down Under that 'Lex and me once fought off a passel
o' aliens at.  First I'm headed for this bar in Tijuana, and would you
believe it's almost time for me to head back up to the Cabin in
Canada?"
       "Care for a traveling companion?"
       "'s long as you don't stick me with no bar tabs, darlin.  It's
gonna be a grand farewell for him."

Tuesday
------------------------------
       The New Mexico noontime sun was hot, and the metallic man was
glowing slightly.  A lump of rock twice as tall as a man was placed
in front of him, hard granite.  A smaller Irishman stood nearby,
while a green haired muscleman watched carefully
       "I'm sure he's watchin' ye from heaven, lad," Sean was careful
not to brush up against the sculptor's metal skin.  "And I'm sure he
approves of anything ye'd design as a memorial.  He knows that you
would have been here."
       "I'm quite sure.  But still, I must provide something to mark
his passing.  My soul will not rest until I do."  With that, the
metal man tore into the lump of stone around him, his superheated
fingers and unbelievable strength working the hard stone like clay.
Within a few minutes, a rough shape emerged, and within an hour, it
was clearly visible as Alex, sitting in repose, looking out at some
point on the horizon.
       Doc Samson picked up the sculpture, easily, though this version
of Alex was well over 10 feet in height.  "Where do you want it?"
       "On that bluff over there, overlooking the little house and the
site that he and Lorna worked on."  Soon the monument was in place,
and they headed back to the remaining jeep to drive to the airport.
       "Now, my friend, you will have a memorial that will watch over
the land you loved.  Spaceeba, Alex Summers, for everything you have
done, on behalf of the world.  We always loved you."

Epilogue
------------------
       In the years to come, Lorna Dane would fall in love, fall out
of love, be betrayed, and find out the secrets that her past held.  But
whenever the pressures grew overwhelming, whenever she felt lost in
the world, she returned to New Mexico, to lean against the statue of
her
beloved, and she found peace.

--------------
notes
--------------
(1) Check out N. R. Huddleston's "Eskimo Pie."  Great stuff.
(2) Check out X-Factor 149 for how he died.  And the X-folks are either
 at the Wedding of Meggan and Britannic, or with Dr. Agee, or out
chasing Marrow right now.
(3) As a result of the Psi-Wars.  And, IMHO, from being thrust suddenly
 into Character Limbo.

Peace out, Fred Garber