Into the night I wander, It's morning that I dread,
Another day of knowing of, the path I fear to tread.

Chiaroscuro: (key-are-ay-scyuro) representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color.

I'm at a loss, you see.

I'm not suicidal. I don't want to die. I just don't want to live.

Crossroads have become something of a regular occurrence in my world. Things end around me. I was born a catalyst. Everything I do moves things; adjusts them so that things alter and continue in a *certain* way. What is, is.

There are no words to describe how much I want to burn that saying from my brain. I hate everything it stands for. Everything that it represents has taken from me. Apocalypse hurt me. This sisterhood has destroyed me.

I am not a man. I am a tool. Someone -no, someTHING to be pushed and used and hurt... My mother and sister are the Phoenix. Born again and again in the heart of fire.

Didn't my sisters get the note expelling that doesn't carry over to the male side of the family?

If I had a working brain cell left I'd use my ever so vaunted and valued powers to shut off my damned heart. One quick tug and that'd be it.

No more.

An ending.

Finally.

Death.

Beginnings are too hard. I've restarted my life twice before. Been the good little soldier. I went back in FLONQING TIME to save this sorry excuse for a world. I gave up everything I had left. I don't know if I can do this again. Frankly, I don't want to find out.

Reality has been... surreal of late. Nothing seems to fit anymore. When it happened, something inside me just snapped. Again. All these neat little puzzle pieces that had been hanging together by the thinnest thread just...

...fell.

So, here I am, standing in this desolate landscape, just wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do now. But again, somehow, I think that choice has been made for me. And I'm trying really hard not to hate her for it.

I'm in the Danger Room.

I haven't been here in close to two weeks. Not since Dom found me.

She didn't say a word. Nothing. I don't know how much she saw. How much she didn't see. Her mind, normally so clear and bright has been shut tighter than a drum ever since. Until now...

I'm not stupid. The fates, time, the Bright Lady... None of them have seen fit to divest me of my intellect. My sanity? My life? My family? All fair game. But no, not my mind.

Domino stopped me from making a choice. Without a word, she changed things.

She took away the numbing haze I've been walking through and forced me to look things straight in the face.

I'm a telepath. The mind is my domain; consequently, my memory is better than it should be. My earliest memory was a sweet one. It isn't really a picture, per se, just a rush of warm colors and emotion. Even then, I could feel it. The one constant in my life. Pain.

Sometimes it wasn't so bad. Just a dull ache at the edge of my consciousness. Something almost comforting in its consistency. Other times...

I'm just tired of finishing things and being left only with pain.

There are very few people on this earth who can hit me and make it count. My TO virus generally takes most impacts, large and small. Ironically, the thing that I've spent my entire life fighting makes me stronger, faster, and more able to take a punch. But there are a few people with the raw power or skill to actually make it hurt. There are not many who know me and my body well enough to know my soft spots.

Dom does.

And she isn't pulling the strikes anymore.

She stopped five minutes ago.

"Stop it you fucking idiot!"

She's scared. It's odd to be reading her this clearly. Even with all the enhancements I've gone through in the past few months, I haven't been able to get past her most rudimentary shields since she came back. Just a flash here and there. And what I've seen has almost sent me running for the hills fast as I can.

She's settled things. Come to terms with a lot of the raging pain that has defined her for so long. She's found a measure of... peace.

I haven't felt that in so long, I almost didn't recognize it.

"Don't you think I know what you're trying to do!?"

I haven't reestablished the link yet. I can't. If I did, we'd have to share things. My mind would be torn by that impossible peace, and hers by my chaos. She's worked too long to reach it for me to take that away. And, oath, have I pushed long enough to get here.

I don't want to come to terms with this. If I did, I'd be forgiving myself for killing my father. My wife. My son. My future.

I've killed myself already. Why can't anyone else see that?

"You bastard! Don't you do this! Do you think your father would want it?"

I didn't expect this. Then again, no one ever does expect Dom's first punch. They're just suddenly there and solid as a brick wall.

Just like her intuition.

She saw everything in the Danger Room. I know that now. She wouldn't be doing this if she hadn't. She couldn't know what she does.

But she left me. She made her choice on that grassy field not more than two thousand feet above us. She walked away.

I can't take this dance again.

"No! I *won't* let you do this! You CAN'T!"

Sometimes I wonder. I wonder if any of this is real. If this horrendous abomination I call my life ever actually happened. How could it? How could some 5000 year old power-mad social darwinist infect an infant with an incurable disease, just to test him? How could I have killed so many people?

How the hell is it that I'm not dead yet?

Maybe I am. Maybe all this is a dream. Maybe I'm still in Apocalypse's arms waiting for the techno-organic virus to kill me. Maybe I've never left that painful instant. Everything I know and everything I am could just be the hallucination of a pain-wracked infant on the verge of death.

Then again, I'm not this imaginative.

Reality is what you make it, and clichés only become clichéd if they have a grain of truth.

I don't want to go anywhere from here. Too much has already been done. Too many roads explored and exhausted. I'm tired, you see. Bone-weary and so ready to lay down this yoke. I just don't know how. It's been part of me for so long... I can't let it go, but holding on will only shred me deeper.

Bright lady knows I don't need that.

It was easier before.

Once He started making trouble again, I stopped looking for her. I stopped hoping for the vague reports that flowed in. I even stopped thinking about her. It hurt to do, but she obviously didn't need me. Or want me. Hell, after the Undying, she just walked away. After that, I did the same thing. Then I got caught up in everything. In the ending.

I can still see the light leave his eyes. It replays every time I close my own. I know it wasn't really him. It was Him. The insane freak who's dogged my every move for longer than I'm willing to acknowledge. My mind says that. My heart?

I don't even know if I have one of those anymore. I think it shut itself off.

Even before... A few months prior to the mess, I got a call from Sam. He told me that she'd come back. She was different, but she was back. I could hear the hope in his voice. It was almost as if he were standing in front of me, hat in hand, asking me to come back. Give up the suicide run I was on and just come back. Like nothing had happened.

Sick thing is, I would have said yes if she'd asked.

But she didn't.

As much as I'd like to attribute it to her letting me look for closure, seeing this seething woman now, I know that isn't true. She was still dealing with the demons eating her, and I was too consumed with my own.

"Dammit, Nate! You have to stop this... PLEASE stop this!"

Something on my cheek is wet. I don't know if it's blood or not. I'm on my knees again, but something's different now. She's still hitting me, but she's crying. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen this woman cry. Those big eyes that look like violets after a storm are just staring at me. Begging me.

She's asking for me.

She's asking for me now. Dammit. She's doing everything but saying the words. With her fists and boots and mind, she's begging in the only way she knows for me to come to her.

For me not to leave her.

Like I did before. Like I'm doing now.

I'm trying really hard not to hate her. But this is Domino. Someone who's stuck with me longer than I'll admit and someone who's left me more times than I can count. Someone who I cannot leave. Not again.

I'm trying to hate her, but it isn't working. It's harder not to love her.

"Nate... Please don't do this... Please... Don't. Leave. ME."

Doesn't she know she's already made my choice?