Rating: PG. No sex, no violence. Just depression.  
Disclaimer: Ain't mine, ain't makin' money.  
Spoilers: Definite yay for up to X-Force #115, and the X-Men Annual  
2001. And Cable #82 & 83, but not *really*.  
 
Notes: Dom's head is not a fun place, but I figured she deserved *some*  
sort of reaction to the crapitude that was X-Force #100 straight on  
through the XMA2001. Oh, and those Cable issues. And wow is that  
double sided.  
 
***  
 
Through a Glass Lightly  
by A.j.  
 
***  
 
She doesn't want to remember anymore. Not at all.  
 
Many people who know her, or knew her, would laugh at this. Tip their  
heads back and mock the sky with their chuckles. The tough girl merc  
can't handle a memory. So. Amusing.  
 
If anyone knew, she'd probably be kicked out of the club, and get her  
special superhero decoder-ring repossessed. Can't stand the heat...  
 
It's cold here. Before coming to Hong Kong, she never really thought  
about it. Every time she'd been to this part of the world, it'd been  
summer, or if it rained, she put it down to karma kicking her ass. But  
this, the everyday life. Walking and living and going to the store, it  
gets cold.  
 
Must be why her hands are shaking.  
 
There's no one here to see though. No one at all. She smiles faintly,  
closing her eyes to the night around her and trying to lock the box in  
her mind that just won't stay closed.  
 
Lonesome. How silly.  
 
She hadn't been alone – completely – in so long. Forgot what it felt  
like. There was Nate before. And after him, there was the other. The  
monkey on her back.  
 
Lock it up, Dom. Lock it tight. Don't let it go...  
 
...because then it's real.  
 
She sucks in a breath, filling her lungs with dry recycled air. On a  
table behind her, a pack of cigarettes waits. Burning relief. She  
ignores it and the empty condo, looking out over the buildings and neon  
signs.  
 
It was a beautiful kind of terrible, the darkness on her back. The  
missing thing. It which was there, then gone. Building her anew, and  
taking everything – EVERYTHING – away.  
 
She remembers, even though she doesn't want to, waking in that French  
morgue. The water-stained ceiling, and the smell that always haunts the  
halls of the dead. Sour and old. It took so long to wash off her skin.  
 
Hot water and so. Much. Soap.  
 
Even now, if she turns her head the right way, she can still almost  
taste it, bitter. Clinging to the back of the throat like hairspray  
and ash.  
 
She swallows twice, paranoid that it and everything after will come  
back  
in a crash of sensation and light. Swallows and pushes closer to the  
windows, closer to the night beyond.  
 
Everything was missing when she opened her eyes. For a second, maybe  
three, there was nothing at all but the ceiling and the smell and the  
man with the saw. Then she blinked.  
 
And there it was.  
 
Sound and color and EVERYTHING in a large lump inside her head. A new  
thing where an old thing – love she can say now in her head – had been.  
A broken place that hadn't been real or filled since before many, many  
things. And as deep as this new violation, or resurrection, went, she  
could have wept for joy in not being alone. Anymore.  
 
The thing was alive.  
 
It's easier, at night, to let things go. Or in. Or to remember the  
feeling of skin on skin. It used to be a nice memory. Sometimes.  
Distant though. And here, looking down on the bustling streets of Hong  
Kong - not so bustling now with the soldiers - she can recall how the  
new thing had felt all the world like someone had painted her back with  
glue and left it to dry. Not a pulling pain, exactly, but a tightness.  
 
And the weight of it.  
 
Tiny thermonuclear sentient devices were surprisingly heavy.  
Probably had something to do with the dinosaur DNA.  
 
She doesn't think about the traces of emotion. Its conscious. Green and  
quick and gone just as she fumbled to catch them, like Nathan had  
taught her. Not even at night. Don't look at it, don't think about it,  
it didn't happen.  
 
Maybe one day it'll work. Because it's not right now. That trusty  
little box in the back of her head isn't very trusty anymore.  
 
It's raining tonight. Not heavily, but enough to spatter the windows of  
her entirely too-large condo. Light from outside bounces off the water,  
giving the effect of standing in an aquarium. She's leaning now,  
against the big window in the living room. When the sky's clear, and she's  
feeling fanciful, she can stare out past the crowded streets and jammed  
harbors, past the horizon and beyond. She can see forever out this  
window. Maybe.  
 
She's not feeling very fanciful right now. No. Head leaning on the cool  
glass, she can't even see the street. The clouds are low, fog rolls  
past the raindrops outside, enforcing the underwater feeling. She's sent her  
assistant home early with an 'oh, thanks, ma'am!' and a firm push out  
the door. Everyone's gone home to other places and other buildings and  
other people.  
 
She's alone here. Completely and totally. She's getting used to it, but  
is sure that this hurts more than dying.  
 
She's had quite a bit of experience with that too.  
 
Because he knows her and she misses him, the thinks of Sam.  If Sam  
were here, he would probably laugh at her. Maybe. She misses his laugh.  
 
They'd gotten vaguely closer the last time... before. Growing up, he'd  
called it before giving her a knowing look. Getting uppity, she didn't  
say. Going back that last time had been a mistake. She'd known it then,  
but hadn't seen any other option. The weight on her back had,  
literally, been too much, and there are only so many times a girl can have a hole  
blown in her gut before tossing pride out the window.  
 
Her lips pull a bit at the thought, and she knocks against the glass  
she's leaning on. Window. Pride. Heh.  
 
They'd told her to leave, before. Turned away from whatever she had  
left to offer them, and hugged Pete and his little crusade tightly. She  
shouldn't have been surprised. They were kids, and kids needed to look  
to someone who looked like they knew what they were doing. She had been  
though.  
 
Surprised. Not knowing what she was doing. She hadn't known that, ever.  
 
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.  
 
Her knuckles are starting to hurt from the knocking no one can hear.  
Outside, the rain spits at the window more. She shouldn't have gone  
back.  
 
Back.  Her back is aching tonight. Her shoulder-blade and the molted 
skin around it are itching like mad under her robe. It's why, tonight, 
she's doing this. Because not-thinking only works when there's no reminder.  
 
They've died. Everyone said it. Died the way they lived. Powerfully.  
Didn't even leave a pretty corpse.  
 
But that doesn't stop the punch to the gut of knowing you've been left  
behind. Again. They aren't dead. She knows that. Given enough time and  
will, they'll be back and blowing things up again. Or Sam will. She  
won't think about the others. Even so, it doesn't matter, because the  
scars are still there.  
 
They didn't want her anymore. Again. It's a feeling she's becoming all  
too familiar with.  
 
Delicately, she traces a finger down the path of a raindrop. It's a  
silly thing that she thinks she might have done as a child. Trace a  
path, follow where it will lead. Race gravity, anticipate movement.  
There's a smile on her lips. Not happy, but not sad. A haunting little  
thing that seems out of place on her brand new, young face.  
 
A long time ago, during a lesson only half-remembered, someone 
told her that all glass has flaws. In the right light, every window 
is a web of cracks and fissures. It's a liquid that keeps moving 
otherwise it gets brittle and shattered.  
 
It's knowledge that's served her well more than once. Find the breaking  
point and push, just hard enough. Let it all rain down like a sparkling  
waterfall.  
 
She wonders how she would look in the middle.  
 
The windows are why she chose this place. They – being Xavier – had  
given her a choice when he'd hired her. She'd taken this one and been  
glad of it. It was a base. A stopping point. And the windows...  
 
She tilts her head just a bit, and the light from the cola sign across  
the way shows her a story. Flaws and fissures, all in a web. There it  
is.  
 
Her whole life she's moved. Remembered when it was convenient. Run  
faster and further because going back wasn't an option.  
 
She isn't moving now. She's stopped. Caught here between what was, and  
what will be. And here in her too-large-fish-tank condo, she's waiting  
for the right light. For someone to see the flaws and cracks stretched  
over new skin, and to push just...  
 
...there.  
 
But she doesn't think of that.  
 
Instead, she runs her finger over the spot. The center of the web.  
It's cool from the rain and the wind, and almost soft under the pad of  
her index finger.  
 
It would take so very little.  
 
She knows this. And it's why she steps back and scoops up the pack of  
cigarettes, her lighter, and a remote. A flick of her wrist and Asian- 
techno fills the rooms, lights flash.  
 
The first puff pulls hot smoke down her lungs, then back up, across dry  
lips. There's nothing but the taste of nicotine now. Nothing in her  
head but light and sound of this place. This now.  
 
And she doesn't remember.  
 
-fin-