She had refused to go easily. Emma Frost had delivered on her promise and had choked her way back through whatever chewed on her and on her way back through the gullet and oesophagus of all things, she saw painted murals in kaleidoscope of all she’d known.
𝗗𝗮𝗿𝗸, 𝘂𝗻𝗿𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲 until she returned to a land of grey and black and fog; where apathy marred the very air and weighed it down. It was neither a harsh landing or a reappearance. She just was, again. This world beyond now was devoid of colour. Like she’d left it all behind in the slipstream. Her eyes flickered open to the gloaming outside. Each shape beyond that created the etching of the city just another piece of the mouth; it was an all consuming place. A rictus grin that had been carved from an architecture that hungered. The thought brought her to her knees. Or had she always been there? Confusion tangled every thought that she tried to form; synapses failing to fire.
Tears filled her waterline and she did not know why, only that they were accompanied by a horrible and roiling, consuming rage. She lashed out with a fist and tore at a bedside dresser until it was on the floor; a glass lamp shattering with the fall.
𝐸𝓋𝑒𝓃 𝒶 𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓎 𝒻𝒶𝓂𝒾𝓁𝒾𝒶𝓇 𝑜𝒷𝒿𝑒𝒸𝓉 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝓇𝑜𝓌 𝓊𝓅 𝒶 𝓃𝑒𝓌 𝓈𝓊𝓇𝓅𝓇𝒾𝓈𝑒. “I…” she spoke out only to find that her throat was hoarse and why? A feeling in her bones and on her skin that her mutation had left but she couldn’t remember it, or she could, in fragments and broken pieces. The turning and moving through something from somewhere and a sense of turmoil and a feeling of fighting against it all tooth and claw. A face. Fading, but a face and a name. What was the name?
She screamed out in frustration and grabbed the base of what was left of the lamp and threw it as hard as she could at the useless windows, that view out across this starving city and she watched as it shattered further. What she looked at was a place that still wanted her and people like her to be swallowed and buried.
𝗔𝗻 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁. Krakoa was home, or was home something else? Home was a House, maybe, she thought. Home was somewhere after the vengeance that had occupied her mind. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe after vengeance was just nothing. These horrible emotions, horrible and stirring and tearing at the places that made her feel inadequate. New York was a stomach just like the House.
What House?
She began to weep.
“Cancel my meetings today, would you?”
“Ms Frost, you were meeting with a Stark Industries representative today–”
“Then send a flower basket. They’ll live.”
“Of course, Ms Frost. Is there anything else I can do?”
“I’ll be fine, Faraday.”
“Em?”
“Hi, Scott.”
“I wasn’t expecting this. Your call I mean. I wasn’t expecting your call… Is everything okay?”
“Well I hope I didn’t wake you. What time is it anyway? I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“No, not at all, I’m awake. I’m up. How are you? How… Can I help? uhh. Em?”
“I just wanted to speak to you.”
“Oh. Right, well, I’m here.”
“I went to some dive bar with Jessica you know, in Hell’s Kitchen.”
“Oh yeah? I wish I could have seen that.”
“Mmmm, oh I know you would have liked that. Maybe next time we'll invite you to girls night. Took my own wine of course, and my own glasses. Who knows what filth–”
“-Of course you did, let me guess, a red?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Merlot?”
“Oh you do wound me Scott, I thought you’d know.”
“Of course I do. Tempranillo. Teso La Monja. Only you would take a three-thousand-dollar bottle of wine to a shithole.”
“You always did have a good memory.”
“For you? Always– Emma, it’s not that I don’t want to talk or anything just… Our last conversation– Wasn’t– I just, this call feels out of the blue. I've been regretting how we left things but–”
“Do you remember that time I got sick? We’d been to Zurich-”
”Yeah. Bahnhofstrasse. You dragged me shopping for half a day, but you know I do remember that the hot chocolate after was nice. The cafe, the snow... The sunset.”
“Only
you had hot chocolate, Scott. With marshmallows might I add. I had a brandy. But, I’m not talking about Bahnhofstrasse. More my… Sudden internal collapse, my mind shutting down. The horrible feeling of being unmoored and full of noise and silence all the same.”
”I remember. Your… mind flu. Telepathy sickness. Migraines and the like.”
“I think I have another one. I feel so overload with telepathic psychic glitches.. It feels like Juggernaut punched me in the back of the head and then some, and then there’s just stretches of static and silence. I dreamt of. Something, I think. Someone. I was trying to help. A House, someone someone… I dreamt I ran through Hell to save someone. I think it was me– Maybe it wasn't. It's like swimming through smoke. I don't think I saved him.”
“Saved who? Do you want me to come over?”
“Travel all the way to me from Krakoa? Oh Scott, whatever would Jean say?”
”Emma…”
“Sorry.”
”It’s alright. Are you alright? I mean, are you safe?”
“I’m in my penthouse. Tucked into my four-poster with room service on call. I’ll
think I’ll be fine, I just need to slow down today, let it pass.”
”Are you sure you don’t want me there?
“No, you don’t need to come over. I wanted to talk because… I do keep thinking about Thea...”
“I’m coming over.”
“Scott, no. Please. I don’t need you to be here. I called to speak to you. So you'd hear me without... Jumping in.”
“...I’m listening.”
“My mind walks me to the nice times you know. Before it went wrong. What it felt like to have her... She used to put too much sugar in her tea. Do you remember that? She would ruin it and I’d watch her do it every time. Spoon by spoon… I told her it was disgusting. And yet, sometimes I make it like that myself.”
“Yeah– I remember it. I remember it and then my teeth start to hurt. They’re hurting right now.”
“It’s not like I don’t always think about her, but today it’s different. It’s like the images are just sitting there on purpose because my mind feels split in two and I keep thinking of what could have been if... If I’d walked through Hell for her, bartered with a demonic thing. I don’t know. Scott. I hate the way the anger is lodged in me like a knife.”
”Jesus Emma, what’s all this talk of Hell, anyway?"
“I don’t know John, the dream. I think it's the feeling of fingerprints left behind.”
”Uhm, Scott.”
“That’s what I said-”
”Right, well, Emma, there wasn’t anything more we could have done. I wish that I could have, that we could have… But I’m glad you’re talking about her. I miss her too.”
“I know. Then you understand, it’s not just about missing her. It’s about every piece that was lost from her future and from ours. It’s the way my mind feels everyday and it’s about this horrible absence in me. My anger. The way I soothe myself with it.”
”We all miss her, Emma. We all do.”
“They don’t miss her the same way I do. Do you?”
”How is it that you miss her?”
“Like a piece of me has been hollowed out. It’s not. It's not just all the grief and anger. I have this constant need to calculate. To think over what we should have done. What we should have prevented and how we could have made it
right. Got her back to us. The
us that she belonged to. Every so often though... I do allow myself to feel grief. It feels... Cruel. But reminds me that I’m alive and then I come full circle to remember that she is not. I feel it all because she is not.”
”I feel it too. And I feel guilt, not just for not saving Thea but… For letting you–for not saving you.”
“...Scott.”
”I think about it all the time. What I missed. The warning signs, I replay them all. That’s my knife… But damnit Emma, I see you. I see… I see you every day and the way you’re carrying on, even with your anger and the way you don’t want to talk. The way you won't talk to me. The way you never did. I still see the rest of you is there. I see it– and I don’t want you to be alone–”
“Stop it. Do not turn this into reassurance for yourself. I do not need you to fix me Scott and I
never have. Not then, not now. My choices were mine alone. I just… I’m, maybe I’m weak today. This headache. These thoughts and bruises. I just wanted you to hear me...”
There was nothing on the line for so long, Emma wondered if it had dropped–
“Scott?”
”I’m still here. I’m just… Trying to not get this wrong… You’re not weak, Emma. It’s not weak. You can’t hold this forever.”
“Right… I’m tired of containing it, even if it is frightening to show
this. I hate our knives. Some days I just want mine to stop hurting. I… I don’t care how. That’s the part I don’t want to say out loud.”
”Even if there is an angry part of you, I know there are other parts too. All that love you have in you has never gone away… You see yourself as weak and angry. I don't. You just… You let it redirect. You don’t see that but I do. You’ve poured it into Krakoa. You take care of things and maybe I was too harsh on the platform. I was. We both were. I'm sorry for that, I shouldn't have-- God knows I put my foot in it sometimes. But you were right, you’re doing good work. With your students, with Carl. And this Gala, it seems like something that will be good for you and when the night comes I’ll be there, and I’ll support you and I’ll watch you. I hope it quietens the anger. I really do… I hope it dulls the knife.”
“Will you wear a suit?”
”Well, no, I was thinking about a dress actually. Know any good designers?”
“I’d like to see that.”
”I know you would… Maybe for girls night. But. Yeah... Yes I’ll wear a suit. And I’ll be proud of you and maybe one day I’ll find Sinister and I’ll do what I need to do to rid myself of the guilt and maybe… Fuck-- I’ll feel deserving of you again...”
“Scott. You don’t get to decide that. Not now, not ever. I didn’t call you so you could put yourself on trial for me.”
”I’m sorry.”
“No. Don’t be. This. I’m sorry that you… You always get the worst of me. This is me being honest and you and I both know that doesn’t happen and it doesn’t happen with many people.”
”I know. I’m glad you called.”
“So am I. And that’s new… Thank you for wanting to come.”
”Always. Feel better Emma.”