Template:Featured Articles/21-2024
 Their destination was a corner of the graveyard, a small huddle of gravestones clumped together, their surface free of the weeds and moss that decorated their fellows. The X-Man knelt, fingers brushing across the stone to brush away those vines that did try to intrude, kneeling a moment longer before he stood, glancing down at the graves. Nica had followed him without saying a word, her confusion mounting. At last, watching Scott tend to the stone, she broke the stillness with a quiet question. "Did you... did you know them?" "No, I'd never met them before." Scott's voice was quiet as he squatted in front of a tombstone, one hand reaching out to brush over the rough stone fingers travelling a familiar path across the rough abraded surface. It was a path that his fingers could walk without him looking, one that he'd spent countless hours tracing out on every visit. The silence hung in the air for a moment before Scott began talking again. "It was a while ago, more than 15 years but we were on a mission in the city, dealing with a horseman again but things...things weren't going too well for the team. We had a few minutes, maybe less to stop a bomb and a crowd of innocents, just under someone's control trying to stop us. What could I do? There was a truck and the crowd and I used it as a battering ram, sent it flying into them. Most of the crowd made it out, went running in fear but some of them...they did what they could for the families but a truck's heavy and my optic blasts carry a lot of force." A hand rested on the top of the gravestone as Scott pushed himself to his feet, not looking at Nica, his voice slightly hoarser, more gravelly than before. "I understand more than you know, and there's not a day I don't remember what happened, I can't say it'll go away, that you'll stop thinking about it, wondering about it. But if I hadn't done what I did, if you didn't do what you did then more of your friends would have suffered, more innocents would have. Taking a life isn't an easy thing but, it can drive you to make sure no-one else ever has to suffer like that...if you want it to." He'd made that vow years ago but, sometimes the wheel of fate was inexorable. Nica walked slowly from one stone to the other, noting the date of death - October 28, 2008 - the same on each one. Each carefully tended and kept clear of weeds and dead flowers. Each a symbol of the cost of doing what they did, but worse, since at least the Marauder's actions had been voluntary. Each a life cut short, a father, a daughter, a partner. When she looked back at Scott, there were tears on her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I didn't know." "Not many people do, I'm not exactly the most...open when it comes to things like this, too much history and too much responsibility." A soft sad smile touched the edge of Scott's lips reflecting the sadness in his eyes, the rare revelation of the hurt and agony which were his constant companions. "When you're in charge, when you're the leader you don't get to show emotion where other people can see, can't fall apart when everyone else is, no matter how much you want to. They need to believe in you, believe you know what you're doing and that you can handle anything that gets thrown your way, get them out of trouble. There aren't many people I can talk to about it, Charles is about it, Jim knows a little I think." The man stood, finally looking across at Nica, his hand still resting on the gravestone, as if he could draw strength from the stone. "I'm telling you this cause you have a choice, you can give up your badge, no-one could blame you or you can keep it. We can never escape our ghosts but we can make peace with them, you can let it drive you on to become better as part of the team. Or you could let it carry you to the front of the team, take on that burden so no-one else needs to worry about it." A choice, unlike the one he'd been offered, he owed her that much. "I've seen what you've done, what you can do but...you need to go into it knowing there's a cost. You deserve to be here, to be one of us. If you want it the wings are there, if you want to keep them, if you want more, that's up to you." |
