A/N: Well here I am, plodding along. I wanted to finish it, even though this last chapter's short (but how many times can you read about this last scene anyway? Haha...). If you liked it, please take a quick moment to REVIEW (plug!), and if you really liked it, I have other fics...

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"If you must feel sorry for anyone, misfit, feel sorry for yourself. For you and your fellow X-Men will be the ones to suffer tonight!"

--Dark Phoenix, Uncanny X-Men 136

Jean: Scott, am I worth it? I destroyed a world--in my mind, I can still hear the screams of the dying--and it felt...good! I don't want that feeling ever again. And yet--I do!
Cyclops: I know. But to give up--that'll be like saying that Dark Phoenix won. That you are evil. You're not! Jean, whatever happens, know that I love you. And I'll stand by you.

--Uncanny X-Men 137

--

You've seen it coming in the sense that you've seen every atom in the universe coming towards you. Every permutation of the past, present, and future is a fine grain of sand in a boundless desert – all of so little consequence because you tread them beneath your feet. Of these, only one of the myriad futures can come to pass, and in this case it's this unfavorable one – you are standing atop of heap of wrecked cars, fighting to preserve your existence. Everyone has turned against you and you're not surprised. But this time, the Professor is dead. No one will be trapping you. You will not be suffering tonight...

You're enjoying this. Kicking down sandcastles.

In the midst of your vainglorious reverie you can see Logan, pitifully making his way over to you. Logan, who's becoming tiresome, because he always seems to be saying, look, Jean, I was the good guy.

That's not what you want. You want...

He takes another step forward. Your thoughts are beginning to unravel.

...power, vengeance, sex, freedom...

He takes another step forward.

...to protect mutants, to save lives, to teach Biology again...

He takes another step forward.

...to go home, to marry Scott, to raise a family...

You want to drown.

He takes another step forward.

You don't deserve the good guy anymore.

He takes another and you want to - the words fall from your lips – "Die, for them."

But he stabs you in the side, and as the enervation floods through your veins, you know it has always been too late for regrets.

--

"Surely...you know a Phoenix dies only to be reborn."

--Shadowcat as Dark Phoenix, Uncanny X-Men 157

--

"Jean... it's over."

It stings so much that my eyes have filled with tears and I can't see. I clutch at my side, and there's hard there. A plastic syringe.

But we're not in the infirmary... I don't know where we are. A hot wind blows suddenly in my face, pungent with the hot stink of metal and burning rubber. Logan's taken me in his arms, and he's carrying me somewhere else, his footsteps shaky but resolute.

He's saying, "I'm going to get you out of here, everything's going to be okay..."

But his face is Scott's face, leering from the grave, "This is what you've done, Jean, and you're going to have to live with it forever."

Your voice is coarse and raspy. "Logan... the voices in my head..."

"It's okay, Jean, it's going to be okay."

"You're responsible for the deaths of all these people."

"You have to listen, Logan..." It hurts to talk. "The voices in my head, I listened to the voices, I did what they told me to..."

"They're gone, Jean, they're never coming back."

"But at the end of the day, Jean, I'm the one you take home. I'm the one who sticks around."

"I... I'll never die, Logan," you whisper, eyes flooding with hot tears.

"Never, Jean. Never," Logan whispers back, with an awful ferocity. His arms tighten around you and then they never let you go.

--

end.