Started December 21st, 2012, finished January 11th, 2013.

As usual, I make nothing from this, I do not own the characters or scenarios created by Marvel, etc.

This story is about Kurt Darkholme, (AoA Nightcrawler), and is set directly in the aftermath of Uncanny X-Force #34. It is prior to the planned X-Termination crossover event that will feature the character, and leads into it. I was unhappy with how the character was left, so decided to expand on things. Fall from Grace is a kind of follow-up to Kaleidoscope, or at least the epilogue chapter of it. That was where the character of Sydney was introduced. In this story, I wanted to get into Darkholme's head. I wanted to try to shed some light on the dark, cob-webby recesses of his mind. I hope you enjoy it!

As always, thanks to Marg and Karl for proof-reading and offering insight. I'm a more confident writer because of you both. The cover image is an adapted piece originally done by the wonderfully talented artist, kimoz.

Chapter One

The smell was over-powering, filling his nostrils and lodging in his throat. It burned his eyes, coating his furred, indigo skin. There was no relief from it, no breeze to disrupt the weight of death in the air. Weakened from fatigue and hunger, Kurt scrabbled to climb the still smoking debris, seeking a higher vantage point. He stood and surveyed the holocaustic scene, his heart thudding dully.

Carnage was everywhere he looked. Twisted steel beams, crushed cement and broken bodies were all that remained of the once modern city – the city where his mother had been living. He stood now where her apartment had been. "Mother!" Kurt's voice rang out over the silent decimation, already hoarse from shouting. "Is anyone left alive?"

He'd laid out the bodies as he found them, unable to bear just leaving them to rot. There were so many, some barely even recognizable as human. Sometimes, that was better, to not have a face to linger in his nightmares. Kurt swallowed hard. The children were the worst. In every small body, he saw the hopelessness of the future. He shook his head, dispelling the image of a round-faced little girl with a scorched yellow ribbon in her hair.

Could he have missed seeing his mother? No, he'd checked them all carefully.

"Hallo! Anyone?" He was certain he heard a faint voice in response this time and he teleported in that direction, hope a tight bud over his heart. "Mother? Can you hear me?" The rustle of black wings was the only reply he received, as a crow took flight with a gruesome red prize in its beak. Undeterred, Kurt pawed through the corpse-littered wreckage, gagging at the offal that covered his hands and arms. His mother was resourceful; if anyone could survive this, it was her. "Is someone there?"

After an indeterminable amount of time – it could have been half an hour, it could have been several hours – he sat back on his haunches, exhaustion finally getting the best of him. Still, his mind repeated the mantra, "she can't be dead, she can't be dead." If he allowed himself to believe she was, it was more than his sanity could stand. He still woke in the night seeking Linda's arms, his pillow wet with tears; he couldn't take losing his mother, too.

Kurt thought back. Had he been searching since yesterday or the day before? He couldn't remember. That's what he got for being perpetually drunk. He'd been alone at the base, in an alcohol induced stupor when he saw the news feed. His team mates had finally stopped trying to include him on any missions of late, and were away. He'd spent the rest of the evening getting here and had been futilely searching since then. He hadn't thought to leave a note.

His vision dimmed, or was it night again? A low hum droned and the air stirred. Lethargically, he looked around, trying to determine what it was. The roving spotlight of an airborne scout brought him fully alert and he quickly looked skyward. Six of them. Hunting. Their massive armored forms eclipsed the sun. Frantically, he looked for a place to hide. It could be worse, he told himself, they could be sentinels, then there would be no hiding from them. There was little in the way of cover, most of the terrain flattened. It was a matter of seconds before he was spotted. If he teleported, their radar would register it. Seeing no other alternative, he dove into a pile of mangled dead, burrowing underneath them and hoping it would be enough to mask his presence.

Kurt's heart beat wildly, pounding in his ears. To him, it seemed deafening. Surely they would pick up the sound with their tracking equipment. His gorge rose from the stench surrounding him, and he tried to breathe through his mouth so he wouldn't gag and give himself away. Some viscous liquid dripped onto his face and he closed his eyes, waiting for the end.

An eternity later, they were gone, and he saw hazy sunlight again. Slowly, every limb trembling, he extricated himself. Gasping and coughing, he retched, nothing but yellow bile coming up. The world was spinning around him as he lay his head on the ashes whispering, "mother..."

"Shhh...just rest..."

Soft humming filled his ears, some song he couldn't quite remember. Vas? Kurt opened his eyes, taking in the sight of ugly floral pinstripes. Linda had chosen the wallpaper, and he hadn't had the heart to tell her it was hideous. Linda! He felt for her next to him in bed and found emptiness. Panic rose in him until he heard the unmistakable clink of the coffee pot in the kitchen. The sound soothed him. Home. I'm home. It had all been a bad dream. Muzzily, he ran his hand through dark, curly hair and yawned. Ach, what a nightmare. Running his tongue over his teeth, he made a face. He couldn't give his wife a kiss with breath like that.

He wandered into the bathroom and splashed water on his face, ambling into the adjoining room once he'd finished his morning toiletries. It was dark. Why is it so dark? Kurt peered around in sleepy confusion and tried the wall switch. Nothing. "Linda?" Silence. "Liebling?" Had she been to the market this morning already? It smelled like a butcher's block in here.

Shadows played on the walls of the open living room, forming distorted shapes, seeming to rise monstrously over him. Annoyed with the feeling, Kurt jerked the curtains open and felt his knees buckle underneath him. Those weren't shadows, they were splashes of blood. Memory flooded back in an over-whelming wave. Linda's death at the hands of Fred Dukes. The silent, accusing apartment. Why weren't you here? He heard her ghost whispering in the dark watches of the night, sometimes. He could hear it now. Kurt covered his ears, squeezing his eyes shut and sobbing. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...I swear, I've made him pay for what he did to you..."

A breeze fluttered the torn curtains and he felt his cheek gently brushed by them. "Shhh...it's all right now..." The voice touched him with the weight of a sigh.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to scorching heat as he met Bobby's pleading stare. Bobby, his friend. Bobby, the only one he'd been unable to drive away, the one who kept him sane through everything that had happened. "Just one more chance, Kurt, I swear I'll change...Please!" his voice ended in a pain-filled shriek as the blaze licked away at him. Nein, no more chances for Bobby. Flames leapt around them both, and Kurt backed slowly away. No more chances for him, either. Fire filled Kurt's eyes, as he watched his friend breathe his last, then burning pain seared through his belly, ripping him open. E.V.A. stood over him. "Whatever ethical fiber you imagine yourself made of, it's a lie. You are a selfish coward!" Kurt shrank from her knowing gaze. Nein, he was no coward! Unrelenting in the face of his reasons, she damned him eternally with her eyes as he teleported away. What does she know? She's a robot, how could she ever understand my pain?

Kurt shivered in bed with a fever, clutching a ragged toy rabbit to his chest. Its one remaining button eye caught a glint of moonlight. He was a little boy again, and his mother gently brushed his hair back with her fingers, humming softly in the darkness. He could only see her silhouette, but the touch was so cool to his burning face..."Shhh, you'll be okay..."

Fire rained down around him, and Apocalypse stood over his mother, ready to destroy her. No, not his mother, but too like her for him to ignore. Not this time! With no thought to the consequences, he wrapped his arms around her and got them both out of there before death could steal her away from him again.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He'd found her in time and she was safe. It was over, it was time to...

What was that song she'd used to sing to me? The refrain echoed in his mind.

Um das Fenster weht der Wind,
Fährmann wacht im Hafen,
Steige in das Schiff, mein Kind,
Du musst schlafen, schlafen.

Niemand weiss, wohin er fährt,
Du bist wohl geborgen,
Niemand ahnt, wie lang es währt,
Was wird morgen, morgen.

Kurt swayed unsteadily on his feet, dizzy from blood loss. Nein, this wasn't his mother, only her Doppelgänger. Funny that. It would be so easy to...He tried to make sense of her words. She was thanking him, asking him to stay. Stay? I don't belong here, how can I stay? The rest of what she said was hazy, muddled. He finally walked away from her in the rain, assuring her he'd be fine, he'd had worse wounds.

He stumbled into the night, letting the downpour wash the blood from his face and cool his brow. Home. I have to get home. Darkness etched his vision, then he was falling through the shadows, falling into the shadows that had come alive. The ghosts that gibbered to him in his dreams were waiting, ready to take him with them. Ready for their own vengeance. Some faces were more familiar than his own, and beloved. Some he barely remembered.

They surrounded him, their bloody lips pressed to his flesh, and they tangled sinuously around his arms and legs, holding him fast. Kurt struggled, thrashing futilely. "Stay away from me! I did what I had to do!" His breath came in ragged gasps and his flesh burned where the shadows caressed him. "Don't you understand?! I had no choice!" Madness was taking hold. "Bitte!"

Incongruously, singing invaded his consciousness again, soft and lilting. His unstable mind seized on it, grasped it close. The ghostly touch to his face was cool and soothing, the face behind it a backlit blur. It seemed to go on and on, fighting off the smouldering shadows bent on destroying him. After a time, Kurt felt himself drifting and free. Was this how death felt then? It wasn't so bad.

The familiar clink of a coffee pot awoke him. Refusing to look on the nightmare again, Kurt inhaled deeply. No blood, just coffee and ...bacon? Ja. That was it. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes and gazed up at an unfamiliar high ceiling in a strange room. Faded blue walls, a chair in the corner under the window, a scarred dresser on the far side of the room – where was he? He ran his hand over the quilt covering him as he lay on a wrought iron framed bed. Quietly, so he wouldn't alert whoever else might be around to his lucid state, he sat up and put his feet over the edge. He groaned and clutched his bandaged abdomen as lights danced behind his eyes. Ach!

"You shouldn't try to get up just yet." Footsteps heralded the approach of his host.

Kurt looked on the ghost with incomprehension. "Sydney?" He whispered. Maybe he'd lost his mind, after all.

The woman nodded and moved to help him. "Really, let me help you. I don't want you pulling out those stitches." He looked at the mottled, rust-colored patterns that marked her as a mutant, starkly visible on her dusky skin. He remembered every one. He remembered the directness of her dark-eyed gaze, even as a child, though this was a woman. Her touch on his arm was cool and firm, reassuring him that she was flesh and blood.

Kurt allowed himself to be fussed over as his mind raced, trying to determine how he got here. He hadn't the faintest idea, but at least she wasn't a ghost. She was this world's version of a childhood friend that he'd tracked down weeks ago, to help him find one of his targets. That was the last time he'd seen her. Sydney was a mutant whose talents included psychometry and some deep diagnostic sense, but why was he here now?

"Not that I'm not grateful, but how exactly did I get here?"

"Beats the hell out of me. You were mostly dead on my doorstep when I got home from work. That was four days ago." She eyed him.

Four days! "Do you often take mostly dead strangers into your bed?" His intended sarcasm was lost in the weak sound of his own voice.

She put a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow. "Only when they've lying there like a stuck pig and bleeding all over my front steps. Besides, you aren't exactly a stranger, are you?"

Kurt gazed at her, his lips tightening.

"You showed up in my clinic a couple of months ago, remember?" She sat on the edge of the bed. "I may as well take a look at you, since you're awake." She chattered on, probably trying to put him at ease. "You gave me a pretty good scare, burning up with fever until last night." Gently, she loosened the adhesive tape and probed his belly. A soft, almost hypnotizing light moved under her skin, turning the discolorations a warm amber. Kurt watched, momentarily forgetting his predicament, then winced and dug a fang into his lower lip when she touched a tender spot. "Not bad, looks like the infection is clearing up. Your blood count is coming back up, too. You're lucky whatever stuck you missed the important stuff." She reattached the gauze. "Roll over, let me take a look at your back." He complied, grunting with the effort. She was careful, and worked slowly, but it was still agonizing. Damn, the woman was torturing him! Kurt grunted and gripped the pillow to keep from making any further noise.

"I think you'll live," she finally pronounced, standing up.

With effort, he moved so he could look at her again. "Danke, for your help," he finally managed to mutter. He was still waiting on the questions. How did it happen? Who did it? None were forthcoming.

"You're welcome. Feel like you could eat something? You look like barely more than skin and bones."

He nodded and watched her as she left the room.

***Schlafe ein- Zarah Leander

The wind is blowing around the window,
Ferryman guards the harbor,
Get on the ship, my child,
You have to sleep, sleep.

No one knows where he (the ferryman) goes,
You are well kept,
Nobody knows how long it lasts,
What will be tomorrow, tomorrow.