The Phoenix Alternative

It was, Richard reflected, a pretty bad way to go. Once while interviewing a very famous psychiatrist, he'd been asked about the worst way to die. Richard thought a failed parachute would be the worst because you'd see the ground coming up, the parachute keeping you just conscious enough to understand that you were going to break every single bone in your body before you died of shock. Rupturing a brain aneurysm in the middle of the newsroom was worse because he knew, just before something sharp drilled through his temple, that Jason was watching.

"Get Mom," he tried to tell him but his mouth could only let out a scream. He felt, more than saw, the entire newsroom stare then rush to his side. He heard his elbow smash against a table and papers fluttering around him. People were screaming. Or was that him?

Then, crazily enough, there was a bright white light. At the centre, was a golden bird all set afire. Richard blinked. No, it was a woman on fire.

He blinked again. Lois was there, big eyes and cupid's bow mouth, haloed by the bird/woman's flaming wings. How fitting, Richard thought before he slipped away into the whiteness.

There had always been some small particle in Scott insisting that he didn't deserve Jean. One of his college friends thought taking the first five years of formal education at a Catholic school had created a Brobdingnag-sized guilt complex in Scott but he thought it was really much simpler. He was an ordinary guy going out with an extraordinary woman. Lots of guys in love thought their girls were extraordinary but with Jean, it was a measurable fact. If he got insecure once in a while, it wasn't that surprising. He loved Jean and if recently he hadn't shown it, it was simply because she was so much a part of him that having her around was like having oxygen and losing her...

Well...

Scott thought of oxygen as it whipped his face, icy despite of the season because of the year-round glaciers near Alkali Lake. Caribou Highway, the #97, unravelled between the trees, a tarnished silver sibling to Ariadne's spool.

When Richard opened eyes again, he was still enveloped in white. This time, it wasn't as... penetrating. He could see shadow. His veins didn't burst with whiteness. Richard turned his head. Several huge bouquet of flowers sat three feet away. A couple balloons bobbed overhead on the same level as his IV. Something tickled his nostrils. Richard reached up-- his hands felt heavier than usual-- and found a nasal canula taped to his cheek.

"Daddy!" Richard quickly looked the other way, following that sweet voice. Cotton, denim, and hopelessly natty mop of brown hair hurled itself into his arms which had opened automatically to receive it. The child buried his head in Richard's shoulder then yelled, "Mommy! Daddy's awake!"

"Take it easy, munchkin," said a smoke-roughened voice. "I can see that but Daddy might still feel a little weak, okay?"

The cotton-denim-brown mopped boy kneeled up on the bed, never letting go of Richard's hand. "Are you still weak, Daddy?"

Richard smiled. "Never too weak to carry you--" Then his brain stuttered. He couldn't remember the kid's name. His own child and he couldn't remember his name! Richard's chest tightened.

"Richard?" The woman-- Oh, hell, he was calling her "the woman!" He couldn't remember his wife's name either. "Are you okay?"

Obviously, he didn't look okay because the woman immediately reached over his head to press the call button frantically.

"Jason, get down from there for a second."

"No!" the boy-- Jason-- said, clinging to Richard's neck.

"No," said Richard, also hanging on to his son. It was stupid, but for some reason, he thought if he let Jason go, he'd forget him all over again.

A flower-decked nurse rushed into the room, all business. "What's wrong, Ms. Lane?" she asked even as she checked the beep-bop-burping machine near the foot of the bed.

Richard couldn't hear the rest of the conversation. The woman had a name. Lois. His fiancée--not wife, not yet-- was named Lois Lane. And behind his closed eyes, she owned a pair of fiery gold wings.

Jean used to take him flying. Not literally. Using their link, she would cast her consciousness across the astral plane, skimming through minds like a child would hop on rocks to get across a river. Scott was never sure if he liked the rush or not. One mind had a rush of colour, the next a hammer of smells, the third a cotton blanket of emotions, and so on and so forth. They never stayed long, just enough to get around.

Scott knew the jolt of moving to a new body. It was exactly like falling asleep: first came the slow-motion sliding followed by a hypnic jerk strong enough to push a few people off a bed. Then came a flowing ooze starting at the head and moving rapidly downwards. He'd only felt that once, when Jean tired out and couldn't manage to jump without a few minutes' rest.

The ooze Scott now felt covered every part of him to the cracks between his toes and the whorls of his ears. A sharp pain pierced his head, two inches to the left of his right ear. In the distance, a heart rate monitor sang monotonously.

He'd been home for a little more than a week when the effects of the aneurysm made themselves known. Richard was in the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of wine when suddenly, a juice carton transposed over the bottle and the goblet turned into a row of dollar-store glasses.

"Okay," he heard himself say, "I've got five orders of orange, two of cranberry, two of fruit punch, and seven waters."

"Seven sodas," a teenager corrected.

"Ms. Munroe would kill me if I let you all have sodas before her morning class," he said over a chorus of groans. "It's water or juice."

"But that's your favourite Riesling."

He frowned. "You're definitely not going to have wine, Jubilee, so don't even try."

"Jubilee? Richard, it's Lois." A plate clattered on the countertop. "Who's Jubilee?"

The juice carton was an amber-coloured bottle once more and the wineglass-- not a juice glass-- was overflowing with wine. "Shit," Richard righted the bottle and whipped a dishcloth from a hook near the sink.

Lois was already there, rescuing the bottle from further abuse. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," said Richard, sopping up the Riesling from the granite, the cupboards, and the tiled floor.

Scott continuously pushed against the ooze knowing that it would just bend around him, no matter how much he flailed. By disrupting the brainwaves, Scott hoped to create a sort of beacon for the Professor or Jean or any other telepath willing to listen. He didn't like this body. It was uncannily familiar. Not that he grew up in New England royalty or was particularly talented in English, but the psyche matched too well with his own.

Pushing at the body only took up five hours all in all. The rest of the time, he slept or mucked around in the body's memories. A few weeks ago, he was have shied from them but, really, there was nothing better for him to do. Maintaining consciousness in a conscious body drained energy. Everything had a shadow double, like his eyes wanted to see things differently. Which would actually be true considering that his eyes had been covered with red lenses for ten years now. He especially liked relieving the child's birth. The sheer joy that burst from the body was like a drug.

Richard stepped on darkly varnished stairs that weren't there and tried to open doors that didn't exist. He heard kids-- a lot of kids-- laughing, muttering, chattering amongst themselves as he walked up and down the halls. Some voices came so close, he pressed himself against the walls in case they bumped into him. Snatches of long white hair appeared around the corners and once, while he was in his office, he heard a mechanical wheelchair whir into the room, pause beside him, and lay a stack of files at his right hand.

Richard was left-handed.

"We've checked your CAT scans and MRIs," the doctors said. "The blood clot must have damaged part of your temporal lobe or even your parietal lobe which might account for the hallucinations and false memories."

"Where do you see that?" asked Richard as he studied the computer printouts.

"Erm." The doctor fidgeted. "The affected area didn't show up on the CAT scan but that's the best explanation for it. There have been documented cases like yours."

"Blood clots causing hallucinations?"

"Brain damage causing slight hallucinations," the doctor clarified. He wrote Richard several prescriptions which Richard took faithfully: one in the morning, one at the evening on a full stomach. Two months later, he doctor upped his prescription to two at night. And then, near Christmas, he had to take two pills three times a day.

Lois almost broke up their engagement, then rescinded her words, her eyes guiltily darting to Jason and the medicine cabinet. Uncle Perry got him an assistant after they got into an argument about a sabbatical. Richard's eyes had burned with pressure at the yelling match. Jason, thank God, didn't change except that he popped over at Clark's desk more often than not. The hallucinations got worse.

For hours at a time, everything took on a yellowish wash, like he was looking through orange-tinted glasses. He kept raising his hand to his temple or the bridge of his nose, adjusting glasses that weren't there. Richard bought a pair of reading glasses just so he would have an excuse to fiddle with them.

"The worst is when they get all messed up with droplets or fingerprints and stuff," said Clark, handing him a square of microfibre cloth to clean the lenses. "I'm always, y'know, losing this stuff. I have it everywhere but I never seem to, uh, to remember where everywhere is." He grinned, big white teeth displayed self-consciously. "I have the same problems with pencils, pens--" here he tried to twirl the pen in his hand but, instead, it flew out from between his fingers, arcing perfectly to hit Murdock on the nose-- "Uh, oops. Sorry! M-my memo pads, too! Lois always used to keep extra memo pads in her purse. I suppose that's why I haven't bought a cell phone or a PDA yet, 'cause knowing me it'll get lost and with our paycheques, we can't, well, we can't really afford to buy a new cell phone every week, huh? Oh, thanks, uh, any time you want to borrow it, just come grab it from here." He waved the tiny square and stuck it in his back pocket then, realising that it would be quite awkward for Richard to grab at his pants, Clark stuck the cloth in a mug that held his pens.

"Thanks," said Richard. Clark's voice was fading, his shoulders widening, his suit melting away into jeans and a T-shirt.

"--- sent me the books in French," said the not-Clark. "So I spend all weekend looking for the English version then we went to watch Cowboys on Ice and so I couldn't finish the homework.

"Give me a written note from Ms. Munro and I can give you a one-day extension." Richard said. "Don't let it happen again, Piotr."

"Who's Piotr?" Clark snapped into clarity.

"What?"

"You called me Piotr and told me I needed a note from someone called Munro."

"You must have misheard." Richard turned to Jason, who was hunched over his drawing. His crayon hadn't moved. "Whatcha drawing, champ?"

"My school," said Jason.

He smiled. "Most kids try to forget about school after the bell rings. His new teacher has everyone completely enthralled."

"That's good," Clark said slowly. "Those are great teachers. Like a seconds set of parents, really."

The dopey glaze had lifted from Clark's eyes. Last year, when Clark returned, Richard wondered how the hell the country yokel had made it through high school, never mind journalism school, but now Richard realised it was a mask. People talked around Clark because Clark presented himself as a bit of a buffoon. He listened, guided, and eased where Lois bit on and didn't let go until her story gave up the will to live.

Everyone in Xavier's had to learn basic shielding because of the many telepaths that came through. Jean taught Scott a few more tricks through their link. Once Scott realised he might be in this body for an extended period of time, he made a little room for himself in the subconscious. He recreated his study, defining the perimeters daily. It would never be a picture perfect replica because a) he wasn't a telepath and b) it wasn't his mind but it gave Scott a nice place to get away from the body's own thoughts.

At night time, the subconscious got really nutty so Scott wandered around through threads of memory or followed trains of thought making their way to long-term memory. Those drugs had a really nasty effect so Scott did his best to nudge a couple of thoughts here and there to dissuade him from taking more.

Scott liked to bring up his own memories, even ones he'd rather forget like the pudding incident in middle school or the day he spotted Jean give Logan a look that, until that moment, only he had ever seen. They coalesced better when the body was under some agitation but he didn't want to stop.

When it was quiet, usually post-coital nights, he dreamed, too. Most times, they were more memories. There were some strange, prophetic ones as well and Scott wondered if he was somehow channelling Jean's memories through the link. A shop class with a slightly fuzzy Hank turned into a biology lesson led by the same person only with a leonine mane. His one-on-one ethics lesson with the Professor, which comprised of tea, biscuits, and spirited debates, became a fifteen-person class with a TV and textbooks. A teenage Ororo puttering away at half-dead roses melted away to a rather care-lined Ororo putting the same roses on a grave.

Scott tried to hold on to the memories he recognized. He hated to think that they might fade away while he waited for Jean or the professor to find him.

Richard switched medications after Christmas but he didn't take his lunchtime pills anymore. He didn't want to slip up in the office again. Just after St, Patrick's day, Lois said while she still loved him, she wasn't in love with him any more. However, she didn't want to separate Jason from his dad so she moved to her own bedroom on the other side of the second floor. Richard got roaring drunk with Clark of all people because he didn't want his friends to say "I told you so" and he couldn't trust any one else in the office.

"She's still in love with him," he told Clark over his second pack of beer. They were in Clark's two-room apartment just outside of downtown Metropolis. "Five years, y'know. Five goddamn years and she gives me the not-in-love any more excuse."

"Lois isn't comfortable with emotions," Clark said, handing over another beer. He'd only had two as far as Richard could tell. "Unless it's anger, satisfaction, or pre-coffee. Maybe she's just afraid of being too attached to you."

"Bullshit," said Richard. "She was fine until Log--Superman came back. You were with her before. Was she in love with him?"

"What did she say?"

"No."

"Why don't you believe her?"

Richard threw Clark a withering look which Clark returned with a nervous smile.

So Clark became Richard's confidant despite the blatant crush the man had on Lois, Lois and Richard continued to live together but apart, and Richard dreamed of a red-haired woman in a white lab coat who had a rare, wide smile that she saved when the two of them were alone. Jason went from second grade to third with slowly increasing marks in PE and slowly decreasing marks in art. Then, in his fourth grade interim report card, his PE plummeted back down to a D with the rest of his marks trailing close behind. His teacher took Lois and Richard aside and asked, gently, if there was any trouble at home. Jason was so personable and enthusiastic in September but in the past few months, he withdrew and barely participated outside of what was necessary.

"I thought he was okay with the situation between me and Lois," Richard told Clark while shooting pool at the house. Lois and Jason were at her parent's place for the weekend. "He's been okay with it for the past two years."

"Have you asked him what was wrong?"

"Of course but he says everything's okay." Richard pinched the bridge of his nose. "I thought it would be best this way. Jason wouldn't have to suffer from a split household. I hated the end of the month when my brother and I had to pack up and move to a different house."

Even as the words left his mouth, Richard knew it was a lie. He had three half-sisters, no brothers, and while his dad died when he was two, his mom and step-dad were disgustingly happy. He tried to bring up an image of his family. Instead, there was a bald man on a wheelchair, a white-haired African-American, the redhead that had so often visited his dreams, and a monster of some sort with blue fur and spectacles.

"When I was Jason's age," Clark was saying as Richard shook the image out, "I found out that I was adopted. I mean, I'd always known I was adopted but I didn't understand it until I was ten. My dad got me a dog."

"Why?"

"Pops said it was because I was getting old enough for more responsibility but I think that he wanted to show me that you could still love something-- uh, someone who wasn't blood-related."

"Jason isn't mine," Richard blurted out. He didn't know why. Call it the Kent Confessional Syndrome. "Not biologically. Lois was already pregnant when we started going out and I... well, by the time she told me, I was already so crazy for her, I would have taken her if she'd been armless, legless, goatless and dressed in melon rinds and to hell with what my parents said."

Clark made a noise, confirming that he was listening, interested, and would speak as soon as Richard asked for feedback.

"She's just so... passionate, you know?" At Clark's embarrassed cough, Richard said, "Not that way. Not just that way but with everything. She barrels into everything head on, keeps her eyes on the prize, throws every drop of herself into everything she thinks is worthwhile. When I first saw her, I was--" Richard shrugged, chagrined about his blandishments catching up with his mouth.

"I know," was all Clark said and Richard suddenly realised that Clark did know.

"To Lois Lane: Heartbreaker." They toasted beers and Richard proceeded to whip Clark's ass in eight-ball five times. Ever since his brain-aneurysm, his pool game had shot through the roof.

Lois irritated Scott even though she was like Jean. Strong-- emotionally, academically and also, just plain headstrong. Lois seemed more confident in her looks than Jean but with their chosen vocations, there was no such self-consciousness. Like Jean, Lois excelled at research, shone at connecting ideas, and bombed at spelling. If Jean had more of a humanities bent, Scott had no doubt she'd be an ace reporter.

And that bothered him because why the heck would he be irritated with someone who was so similar to Jean? He loved Jean. He didn't do insane things like sky-write her name across Westchester County but he'd die for her.

As time passed, he realised that those similarities were superficial. She wasn't like Jean; she was like him. The one who ignored emotions for logic, who saw everything as an exercise in strategy, who could make icily calculated plans if it benefited people in their protectorate. And, inevitably, the one that went to pieces--emotionally, mentally, academically-- when their touchstone disappeared.

Jason got a dog, a Labrador-Doberman cross from the ASPCA and Richard got rid of his medication and Lois became more comfortable around Richard again. They still weren't a couple; Richard suspected she was seeing Superman because her hair was always windtossed. Although he dated, too, it was only an excuse to double-date with Clark. If ever there was a man who needed to be a dad, it was Clark. Jason, now a mature middle-schooler of eleven, tagged behind him constantly with a steady stream of questions but Clark never minded.

The hallucinations were like familiar friends now. He recognized the people who would dart in and out of his consciousness. The white-haired woman was Ororo. She loved gardening, flying, and drinking tea with frothed milk in the middle of the night. She often experimented with her look as though searching for an identity that would fit her properly. The bald man in the wheelchair was the Professor, a father figure. He had a faint Oxford accent and a tendency to spout mysterious phrases then smile knowingly while you tried to understand the meanings. He'd introduced tea with frothed milk to Ororo. The hairy blue monster was named Hank, of all things, and he was borderline maniacal during football season. Otherwise, he quoted the classics whenever Richard was trying to find just that quote. There were at least thirty kids of all ages and shapes. They became his kids, his students, and if Jason got into half as much trouble as they did, Richard was going to ground him until he turned fifty.

He couldn't keep a hold of the red-haired woman, though. She often smiled at him, sadly, he realised, traced his features with long, close-clipped nails then walked away trailing cinnamon and myrrh.

A week after Christmas, Jason got sick. This wouldn't have been surprising five years ago but ever since Superman's return, Jason had been healthy as a horse. Oh, he was still allergic to everything but he was no longer asthmatic and he seemed immune to every bug that went around the schools, even the chicken pox.

Lois was delayed in the London due to extremely dangerous flying weather but Clark came over at her behest, armed with an entire aisle from the pharmacy.

"I didn't know exactly what to get," he said, slipping on patches of ice and snow slush.

"You didn't have to do this," said Richard, wearily sorting through the pile of brightly coloured boxes.

"Oh, it was no trouble at all. Lois' son is my son, uh, so to speak. Since we're co-workers and all and Jason's always been really swell around the office. I remember I got sick once right before Christmas. Missed it completely, gosh darn it. I-I-I couldn't get over it all year."

From upstairs came a scream. Richard's heart went loose in his chest and his vision swam, yellow washing over everything.

Not now, he told himself. He couldn't have an episode now. Not when Jason could be hurt. But, inevitably, his world faded away. Another set of set of feet pounded up the stairs (larger feet) and a slimmer, smoother-skinned arm touched the railings for control.

"I told Charles it was a bad idea to let him stay here," he said.

Ororo flicked a frown at him but didn't answer. The kids crowded around Logan's room parted like the Red Sea. The door slammed open and Richard/Not-Richard skidded to a stop at the scene in front of him. The new girl, Rogue, stood over Logan, her hand on his cheek as three deep wounds on her back closed. Logan was sinking to the floor in slow motion, his face lined with preternatural wrinkles leading to Rogue's stubby-nailed fingers.

Rogue turned around. "It was an accident," she said in Jason's voice.

Richard/Not-Richard blinked. It was just Jason and Clark with him and the hallway was a soft mint green not dark, panelled pine. Jason wasn't wounded but his dresser was split in the middle, the halves collapsed inward, the mirror above it balanced precariously on the V-shaped surface.

"I was trying to get a sweater," Jason said, "but I started coughing too hard and I think I tripped and... and..." He sniffled. "I can fix it."

"No!" Richard and Clark shouted at the same time but it was too late. Jason's stirring upset whatever minor magic was holding the mirror in place. Richard saw the heavy frame teeter and he knew he was too far away to keep it from smashing on top of Jason's head. He tried anyway.

Someone shoved him away. Richard tumbled back on his rear to see Clark hunch over Jason's smaller body just as the mirror finally gave into gravity. Richard couldn't look away. His eyes burned, like something was trying to push out form behind his eyeballs.

The mirror hit Clark's back. It fell away into two pieces with deadly triangles of glass showering over his back and around his feet. Mindless of the danger, Richard rushed to Jason's side.

"Are you okay?" he asked frantically. For once, the yellowish light faded.

"Y-yeah." Jason tried to extricate himself from Clark's embrace but Richard stopped him.

"Don't more until we clear the glass," he said. "Clark, are you--"

But the question was left dangling because Richard finally saw the state of Clark's shirt. It was in threads, the broken mirror cutting through the cotton in ragged, patternless abandon. But under the shirt, Clark was unharmed. There was no blood, no cuts, not even a welt. The only damage was to Clark's glasses which lay several feet away with one ear piece snapped.

Clark was unharmed by a mirror that had broken on his back. A mirror that was on a dresser that Jason turned into firewood by sneezing too hard.

Clark looked up. His dopey expression was gone again, replaced by serene resignation.

"How tall would you say Clark is?" he had asked Lois six years ago.

"Um, about six-three."

"And his weight?"

"About two-hundred, two-hundred-fifteen pounds," she'd replied.

"Richard," Clark-- who was really Superman-- was saying but Richard's ears were roaring and the yellow hazed had turned orange at the edges.

A great wave of water was coming for the jet. He could see it only a few miles away, only a few seconds away from smashing everyone into dust.

"What about the secondary engines?" he asked Ororo.

"They're gone too. Nothing's responding."

"Try again! It's completely fuelled up and we tuned it just last week."

"Shutting everything down. Now, firing the primary engines."

"Stay here and keep trying. I'm going to see if I can use the auxiliary generators to jump-start the engines. He leapt out of the pilot's seat, shoving past the kids when suddenly, he felt a chill down his spine. "Where's Jean?"

The professor closed his eyes in concentration. "She's not here."

"What do you mean?" Nearly tripping to get to the professor, he asked, "Where did she go?"

All eyes turned to look out the windshield. The wave was nearly upon them.

"No!" he screamed. He threw himself at the door but someone, some idiot!, caught him around the shoulders and help him back. "No! Jean!"

With his eyes still closed, the professor said, "It's the only way."

He knelt at the professor's side. "Jean, please."

"I love you, Scott."

And the wave hit. And his world ended.

Richard-Scott woke up on the couch with the television blaring the weather report. It was still snowing and where there wasn't snow, there was icy rain and gale winds. He was still in Riverside. The decorations were still up. Jean was still dead. The kids were all safe. Clark was-- not wearing his glasses. Which was okay since Richard-Scott didn't have his on either.

"You're Jason's biological father," he said, grabbing onto the old chestnut that best defence was a good offence, even emotionally. Jesus! And he and Lois were partners. He considered Clark a close friend. Was he the only person in the dark? Did they chuckle about it during their flying dates, wondered at his obtuseness? However as soon as the thought popped in, Richard-Scott dismissed it. Lois was not vicious, Clark didn't have a malicious bone in his body and Superman was... well, Superman.

Clark nodded by lowering his chin. "I was going to tell you eventually. As Superman." He looked down. He spoke an octave lower. "You've raised him all these years; you had a right to know."

"Does Lois know? Who you are?" asked Richard-Scott.

It was amazing how much Clark was in Superman and vice versa. How could anyone have missed it? Superman-Clark hunched his shoulders in and reached instinctively for his glasses and Richard-Scott knew that Metropolis' best citizen felt the exact same way about Lois as Scott-Richard did about Jean the first time he saw her walking out the of the school's clinic in an outfit tinged in red due to his ruby quartz glasses.

Lois didn't know.

"I was... too scared then," Clark-Superman said. "I told her-- or rather she found out-- a year after I moved here but the stress of knowing what I do every day, the situations I face... it nearly gave her a nervous breakdown. I made her forget and just sort of... hoped that she'd just fall in love with Clark or I'd fall out of love--" He stopped, his knuckles white. "Then I went to Krypton and when I came back there was you and Jason." He shook his head. "Now it's just been too long."

"But... you're seeing each other."

"Were," said Clark-Superman. "Superman decided it would be best for everyone if we just stayed good friends. She was right the first time around; it's too nerve-wracking to have a relationship with him-- with me. At least with you, she can have a real relationship without megalomaniacs or natural disasters."

"That's bullshit," said Scott-Richard and while Richard recoiled at the idea of swearing in front of Superman, Scott had no such constraint. "Don't make the decision for her. That's the crappiest thing you can do for someone you love."

Clark-Superman opened his mouth to speak but Scott-Richard cut him off.

"I have hallucinations," he said bluntly. "I've had them for six years. I see another man's life and in that life he had a wife. Someone he loved more than anything. Someone--" his voice caught. "Someone as powerful as you are, maybe more. And one day, she made the decision to sacrifice herself for him, supposedly to protect him and he was there when she died, was in her head one minute and completely shut out the next and--"

Clark-Superman was at his side in an instant, pressing a glass of water into his hand. Scott-Richard took the glass, gripped it but didn't drink.

"And for the longest time he hated her for it. Because by taking that decision away, she dismissed every minute they spent together."

Agitated, Richard-Scott jumped to his feet and stalked the kitchen. He needed to file something; he always felt better after filing things. Wait, that was Scott talking, wasn't it? Richard could only work in an organized mess. His office had specific stacks on the floor, one for each grade level and subject. No, for each... story. For...

Richard would have thrown something. Scott resisted.

"What does this... other man do?" asked Clark-Superman.

He started. That wasn't the question he expected. Richard-Scott searched his mosaic of memories before answering, "I'm not really sure. But he's always around kids who had powers."

Both of their gazes flickered up to Jason's room.

"Do you know why I never claimed Jason?" asked Superman-Clark.

Richard-Scott shook his head.

"Well, there are two reasons really. First, you give him normalcy. I can't begin to tell you how important that was to me growing up, having all these powers, being so different. If my dad-- my adoptive dad-- hadn't been around, who knows how I could have turned out. He's the best man I know." He cleared his throat. "You remind me of him."

Richard's eyes pulsed. He couldn't turn around to look at Clark even as he continued to speak.

"I know when he starts experiencing more of more of these changes, you'll be there for him, guiding him. I couldn't do that, not as Superman or Clark Kent." He sighed. "The second, most important reason is much simpler: Jason loves you. In his head, you're his dad, not me."

"You spend a lot of time with him.. I know you three have gone out together."

"He sees me as a favourite uncle. That's important; I'm glad that we have that relationship at least but..." Superman audibly swallowed. "I'll never replace you. Even sometimes, when... when I want to it would be impossible."

Minutes or hours could have passed before anyone spoke again.

"Does he still hate her?" Clark-Superman asked quietly. "The man you see. Does he still hate his wife for making that decision?"

Richard sifted through Scott's memories. "No. It's been a long time. Most of the anger's gone. I just-- he just feels regret mostly."

Clark-- he was just Clark now, all traces of Superman gone-- slumped back against the sofa. "Ever wish you could just start over again in a new life?"

Scott dreamed of Jean that night. Richard never remembered his dreams; Scott wondered how much of that was his desire to have something remain his and only his as he shared this body.

They were in the third floor study which was really more like a sitting room. She sat on one side of the round table, tapping away at her laptop and chewing reflectively on her lip. He sat opposite her surrounded by receipts, a four-coloured pen in his mouth and his own laptop shoved to one side, lost in an avalanche of accounting.

"This is the last time," he said. "Next quarter, I'm hiring an accountant."

"You said that last quarter," said Jean. "And the quarter before that. In fact, you've been saying it for the past five quarters."

"This time, I mean it. I hate doing this."

She smiled his smile, that slow upturning of her lips with the crinkling of her eyes, and without the self-conscious lip-biting, her head tilted slightly to the left. "But you like math."

"This type of math is about as enjoyable to me as making slides is for you."

Suddenly, they were in Richard's office with a long-haired Jean balanced on a stack of binders. "Bobby's an accountant, you know. He's doing the books for the school now through a company."

"Bobby? Really? I'd've thought he'd go into acting."

"No, that's Allison. With little success."

"How's Rogue? Is she still using gloves?"

"Yes." Jean closed her eyes. Fire flared behind his head. "She teaches at the school. She's good at it but her heart isn't really in it right now. She doesn't know yet that it's her vocation. Pete missed another deadline for a show; he's beginning to despair of ever showing his work. Kitty's been accepted into Columbia's Cognitive Sciences department. Teresa moved back to Scotland with her dad but she still misses everyone. Artie's missing. Hank enjoys his position in the UN but he's getting tired of constantly being in the limelight. I think he might go back to Xavier's to teach."

Scott didn't ask about the professor. He stopped three years ago when Jean started crying little licks of flame.

"Is this why?" Scott asked. "Am I here to help Jason with his powers?"

Jean bit her lip then released it just as quickly. "Yes. Mostly." She unwound and re-crossed her legs. "He's a great kid, isn't he? It's so easy to fall in love with him."

"He's fantastic," Scott said. "But he's still not-- Jean, how long do I stay here? When do I go back?"

She didn't answer.

Scott stood. His table disappeared; the whole room vanished into the foggy shores of Alkali Lake.

"Jean."

"Richard will need help raising him. Clark, Richard and Lois, actually. If Jason were a mutant he'd be Class 4, at least, with three beta-level powers and who knows what else."

Impatiently, Scott moved towards Jean. White light and wings of flame drove him back.

"I love you, Scott."

"Jean!"

Richard woke up with dried tear tracks on his cheeks. His head felt strangely full, glutted with information that hadn't been there before.

My name is Scott Summers,said the man whose life he'd watched for six years. I'm a teacher at Xavier's School for Gifted Children and I'm here to help you raise your son.