beMused

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Months had passed, winter set in with snow falling down the ground. Upon the used-to-be junkyard, most of it was cleared out. A small section of the yard was clear and held three wooden headstones of the three fallen mutants — Monty Pryde, Reed Strucker, and Lux Mycroft.

Despite the fall of Reeva, the death of Reed Strucker, everything stayed the same, this time the Underground wasn't fighting mutants, but the Purifiers, who kept on growing in numbers. It had seemed that all of the sacrifices, might've been all for nothing.

Andy Strucker walked toward the graves, with flowers in his hand. He placed the few flowers that grew around the area to Monty and Reed's, but he honestly saved the best for Lux.

He did miss her, tremendously.
Nothing was ever the same now that she was gone. Including the death of his father, he grew distant from his mother and sister, he didn't have much of a reason to fight anymore. He would lock himself in his room, stay for days on end, just himself.

Lauren would try and help him through the grief — which ended up being her way of dealing with it herself — but he didn't budge. Caitlin tried, but it would just lead to a fight.
Even Lorna had coaxed him to come out of his room, but she understood his pain too much, so she never pushed him too much.

He felt utterly alone.
He felt like a monster, for killing Monty, for killing Lux... he felt so much guilt for being the reason they were gone.

Now that winter had come, it became much harder for him to hold back his tears. The snow, the cold, it all reminded him of Lux, how she could make it snow on her command, how she would always be naturally freezing.

He missed her cold warmness when they would cuddle together, missed how she could dissect a movie to its deep-rooted messages, missed her silent snores when she slept and how she would toss toward him in her sleep when she realized he wasn't directly beside her.

For just a few minutes, he sat in front of her grave and thought of her. He did cry, as the snow fell to his shoulder and jacket. He had always wondered if she could see him right now, if she looked at him with pity or sympathy.
For a moment, deep down, he thought that maybe it was best that she had been gone. She was the last Mycroft left, she had no family left. Monty, her love, was gone, as well. Maybe she was better off with the people in the afterlife, if that even existed.

Slowly, he brought up an old photo in his pocket. It was in the first year they met, her hair was a dirty blonde, her skin wasn't iced and scarred, she was just Lux.

"I miss you," He says, talking as if she were here with him. "Every day, I think of things that were played out differently, if you would still be alive. And you were so smart, you don't even realize how intelligent you were, if your head was in... I think you could've ended things, even me, which would be better anyway. But now that you're gone, there's just so much stuff I wish I could've said to you."

He wiped his tears and gently put the photo in his pocket. "But that's for another day." He gets up and walks away and into the building, not being able to just put his feelings into words.

Within the strike of midnight, the snow sitting on the grave of the Mycroft began to levitate. Into the soil, the body of Lux had been cracked, chipped away, even melted. But a shake in the ice began, slowly bringing its pieces together. The remains of snow that were grounded sunk into the earth covering over the missing pieces of her body.

The ice mended and carved into her exact figure, with every placement, bits of light began to glow.
Soon when the body was fully in connecting, a light burst through the ice and a silent boon erupted.
The light and ice cracked the ground above the body, and a hand reached up in the air.

The entire Underground heard the eruption and run toward the sound. Andy slowly made his way out of his room and was the last one to see the scene.

Everyone was completely in shock, no one moved a muscle. There was Lux, half her body out of the ground, getting herself out of her own grave.
She wasn't what she looked like, she looked new and untouched; only dirt was painted on her face and body.

Andy's heart stopped.
He held his breath in seeing her there.
He was the only one to walk up to her, as she struggled to get up from the ground.

The boy gently placed out a hand to her, she looked up to him. She looked the exact when they entered into the Inner Circle. Her hair was platinum white, her clothes were the same when she died, and her face wasn't scarred with ice, it was as if she was reborn.

Lux grabbed a hold of his hand and she pulled herself out of the cracked soil. Suddenly, before she could even get her groundings, Andy pulled her into a hug.

Lux knew it wasn't just a regular hug, this was longing, it was agony and relief. The way he held her head to his chest, his face resting to her head, even hearing the sound of him holding back his tears.

All she could do was hug him back.
In her heart, she wanted to cry, sob with him, but no tears pooled.
All she could do is hold him, just as tightly as he did.

"What... happened to me?"

❅ ❅ ❅

Everyone huddled around the girl.

After she was clean and was given Lauren's clothes, everyone huddled around her, for some sort of clarity of how this could happen. They really didn't answer Lux's question about what happened to her, which only left her angrier than anything.

"What do you last remember?" Marcos asked.

"I... I remember a light and someone over me. Then it went black and just nothing," Lux explained, "Then I woke up, under the ground and a tarp over me."

"So, you remember everything? No dementia, you remember what happened in the junkyard?"

Of course, the girl tensed herself up.
As everyone had — sort of — moved on from Monty and Reed, they had months of grieving, Lux only had a few minutes of it; she didn't even know that Reed was dead.

She looked to Andy, who was beside her. She could see the pain in his eyes, she knew he felt guilty for Monty. Even if it wasn't in his control, Lux felt resentment. As much as Andy was controlled to kill Monty, Monty was gone, for good, and all from the power Andy possessed.

"Yeah." She shifts in her seat, fighting the ball of a sob coming out of her throat. "Yeah, I remember."

The Underground looked around at each other. There wasn't much to go off of with Lux, she could fairly remember her final moments of life. She couldn't answer why she was able to come back to life, after months of being dead, she couldn't answer why she appeared unharmed and pure on appearances.

"Can someone tell me, why was I underneath the earth with a tarp wrapped around me?" questions the Mycroft.

No one really had the heart to tell her.
The only person that did was Lorna, who stepped up and kneeled in front of her.

"Listen. When you said that you say a light and everything faded, you're missing a very big part," Lorna gulped, "Lux, what day is it?"

The blond raised a brow. "Are you joking with me——"

"Just answer the question."

"It's May 14th, right, or maybe the 15th...?"

Slowly, the gears in Lux's mind worked. She turned to a window and saw fallen snow outside. How was it snowing in May, why was she underneath the ground?

Then, a click when into her head.
She held her breath as she realized what Lorna was trying to break to her, ever so slowly.

Seeing that Lux had already put the pieces together, Lorna admitted, "It's December 8th. Lux, you've been... gone, for almost 7 months."

The girl just stared to the woman.
Her hands started to shake as her lip trembled, eyes pooling to what had been told of her.

"N-No," denies the Mycroft, "No, no."

She gets up and makes her way to the window. Seeing that there were two other graves there, one for Monty and the other — she assumed — was for her brother. She didn't want to see the reality that she was dead, that they all mourned for her and grieved.

Lux always thought that there was an afterlife. That there really wasn't a heaven or hell, but eternal peace, a neutral home. But all she had known was dark nothingness, a pitch black void that merely felt like a quick minute. She didn't see her father, her brother, or Monty.

Looking around to everyone, she knew something was off, that someone was missing from the Underground.
"Wait, where's Reed?" She questioned.

Everyone looked around to each other, it finally hit them that she didn't know what happened to Reed Strucker.

"Lux, honey." Caitlin walked up to her, putting her hands on her shoulders in comfort. "Reed is-is gone. H-He sacrificed himself so that Reeva would be gone."

Lux's heart dropped.
"No." But the look of Cait's eyes held the truth, the deep hold she had of the grief of her husband. "But..."

"There are three graves out there," Lauren spoke up, tears in her eyes, "Who else do you think would be there?"

"My brother."

Everyone immediately stopped talking. The Underground had never found Jack Mycroft, they only assumed that he abandoned his little sister, Lux, and left for his own sanctuary; they never had much of a priority to find him, as the Inner Circle was now gone and the Purifiers were on the high rise.

"Jack is dead?" Andy furrowed his brows.

Lux didn't stop herself from letting the tears fall from her eyes. The scene of her brother crumbling among her touch replayed in her head, the last moment of his life was fighting her, and she had to end him.

She pushed her back to the nearest wall and slowly dragged herself down as she failed to hold back her emotions. Tears were fallen, and a weak cry came from her throat, as she wraps her arms around herself for comfort.

First, Jack, her brother. The man that had protected her through the Inner Circle, that had done everything in his power to found her. She had to fight her brother, and eventually kill him. Her last family she ever had, her own blood, she was now the last and only Mycroft standing.

Monty Pryde. The boy who she had loved, who truly deserved the world. She would never hear his kind words, his laugh, she could never see his bright smile. And what hurt was that she had to end his life as he wanted — that he died smiling to her.

Finally, Reed Strucker. The man that was a father to her. That had helped her even if she wasn't even his own kid. He treated her like she was his own, he called her his own.

The only person that dared walk up and crouch down to her was Andy, who gently and slowly started to form a hug to her. Lux immediately dove to him, letting herself latch into him, as she sobs into her shoulder.

Nothing could amount to the pain of losing a brother, a father, and a love.

❅ ❅ ❅

It had only been three days since Lux's arise and nobody was the same. Sure, they acted as if everything was fine, that they were comfortable sleeping under the same roof as a girl that had been dead for almost a year; no one had gained any proper sleep.

The worst thing was, Lux knew.
She wasn't dumb, she could sense and feel the stares they gave her, the guards they put up. She didn't blame them, she understood why they acted the way that she did.

In the three days, Lux had grieved.
She cried to herself, she went into depressive episodes. Without her brother, without Monty, there was never really a reason for her to continue on. The only people that would check up on her were Andy and Lorna, they were the two that didn't exactly treat her as some ticking time bomb.

Lux had sat on the cold grass, just a few steps away from the junkyard, and stared down. She sat in front of her brother's grave that she had made, using two steel rods and some rope and wire, created an X, and placed it along the wired fence outside of the junkyard.

She knew her brother wouldn't like the idea of having a grave near the people that hated him — that he didn't like — so she placed him where he was alone and at peace.

The reason she formed an X as a headstone was because of the X-Men. She could recall the many times Jack would tell her stories about the X-Men, that their father told him. To her, he was a hero, her hero. He had saved her and protected her, he did what he had thought was right and had sacrificed so much for her.

Jack was an X-Men in her heart.

That time, Andy went searching for Lux and found her at the grave. He walked up to her and sat down on the ground, beside her. She wasn't phased by his visit, as he tried to be there for her, physically and emotionally.

"You don't have to be here," She tells him, "I know how you fee—felt about him."

"It was, at least, mutual. We both disliked each other."

"My brother hated your guts," Lux corrected, "He never liked you very much."

"Yeah, well, even if he wasn't the kindest. He was your brother, he did everything he could to help you. And that I appreciate."

Lux looked to him. "If you're here to talk about Jack, you might as well just leave now."

"I came for you," admits the boy, "I wanted to talk to you before you've completely shut me out."

Which was the truth.
Now looking to Andy, she could only imagine the dead look he gave when impaling Monty. Even though he wasn't in control — the Frost sister controlled him — there was this undying resentment. She knew it wasn't his fault, she knew he couldn't control himself, it was the unbeatable trauma of Monty's death.

"It should've been me," Andy tells, "Monty meant the world to you. He would've helped so many people. He was a damn saint. And I feel the guilt every day, because even from how I treated him, he still had so much kindness for people who didn't deserve it. And you. God, how many times have I wanted you to live and not me. You didn't deserve that, you didn't deserve to die."

Lux knew of his guilt. She knew how much survivor's guilt Andy had, as much as he is silent, she could almost sense the thousands of thoughts going inside his mind. Lux did sympathize with him, he shouldn't have felt the way he did.

Lux said, "If that happened, you dying and I were to live... I'd have absolutely nothing left. I don't have anyone else."

"Yes, you do. There's Lorna and Lauren."

"Lorna has Dawn, Marcos. Lauren has you." Lux shifted. "It's different, with you. You have a family that needs you. You have to live for Caitlin and Lauren. Especially since Reed is gone... you can't die."

Andy's hands were in his pockets. He nervously fiddled with the ends of his photograph of her. Hearing her talk like that, it had broken his heart to have her think she was unwanted, not needed.

"What about you, Lux?"

"Everyone has moved," She answers, "No one needs me."

"I do," Andy said, "I need you."

Lux turned her head toward the boy, seeing that he looked at her with such care for her.

"I sat at your grave every day. And every day I'd talk to you. I didn't have anyone to talk to, that I was comfortable talking with. All I had was you, even if you weren't there, I needed you."

The girl's eyes had tears slipping down her face. For once, since she had gotten back, she felt whole. She felt wanted and not feared of.

Andy gently wrapped his arm around Lux, having her lean her head on his shoulder. He had kissed her forehead, and for a moment — a sliver of limelight — they both felt their heart beat as one. They both had a sense of déjà vu, that had them reminisce their days together before the Inner Circle.

❅ ❅ ❅

25 YEARS LATER

Two cars met at the side of a road, in the middle of nowhere. A woman and man got out of their individual cars and walked toward each other.

"I thought I was meeting Lorna?"
"She and Marcos had some business dealing with Dawn."

As they got closer, the man had pulled off his cap to reveal platinum blonde hair, while the woman put her sunglasses up and on her head.
The two smiled at each other and run into each other's arms, hugging each other deeply.

"I didn't think I'd see you for another month," He said to her.

"Well, those Purifiers on the west coast aren't the smartest, and thankfully, those politicians are on the progressive side."

While they let go, the woman's eyes look as if she had been holding back what she wanted to say. And of course, he had noticed this.

"What's wrong, Lux?"

Her hands traveled to his hands, holding onto them, avoiding his eye contact, and staring down to their hands. "I, um, I found a place up in Oregon. A secluded area, very beautiful, and I was thinking of... maybe going up there."

"What about the Underground?"

"Andy, the Underground doesn't need us anymore," Lux explained, "Ever since Lauren took over, it's been thriving in Atlanta. It's what we've been waiting for, for more than two decades."

Ever since the fall of the Inner Circle, the Underground had worked tirelessly to help the mutant cause, they started with the Purifiers in Atlanta and branched out. No one had worked harder than Lauren Strucker. After many years, since Marcos, John, and Lorna were getting older, they appointed Lauren into being in charge. Ever since, the Underground grew and more human connections and support had come to the mutant cause. The three leaders retired, helping the Underground when needed, and have since lived their lives in peace — something Lux had craved over.

"But..."
Andy didn't know what stopped him from leaving with Lux. He had always dreamt of living a life with her, even if they weren't together. As much as he did want the war to be over in Atlanta, he had been growing up in an environment of so much chaos of destruction, that there was nothing he knew else of; it scared him.

"Hey." She cupped the side of his face. "I don't want you to do something you don't want to do. But I'm sorry, I'm leaving, with or without you. You're my best friend, Andy, I just want the best for you."

And she was the best for him.
Andy simply smiled under her hold, having a hand cover the one she was holding him. "Okay."

Lux's eyes lit up to his answer. "You-You mean it?"

"Yeah, I think I'm ready to move on. It's what my parents would've wanted for me."

The woman smiled, "You won't regret it. Oregon has amazing resources to help with other Underground mutants if you want to continue that. And there's..."

The more Lux had rambled on about what life could be there in Oregon, the more Andy would remember the many times she would ramble about her interest when they were teenagers. How she would talk nonstop, her eyes light up with passion, and just the overall joy of her made his day better, every time.

Just as Lux was soon to notice Andy's lack of words, the man went up to her, and kissed her, as his hand wrapped around her waist and his other holding her jaw. Soon as the shock wore off, Lux kissed him back. It felt as if they were molded into one,