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nola_cyclopsIt was an idiotic, sentimental compulsion: go to Westchester, follow your long-held, once-forgotten sacred coordinates to a lane that isn't there, to look for an old home that won't be standing.
That home has moved, and been destroyed, and rebuilt, and moved again. But where else could Sam go to look at, well, nothing?
Sam kept thinking of that goddamn mansion, and of the duality of lives and memories, and maybe if he could see that discernible shift in reality -- grasp that the beginning of everything just didn't exist -- he could find some way to process the rift.
Other people seemed to be coping better with their old and new lives. Some seemed so sure that one -- this one -- was more important than the other. But Sam was Scott Summers, and Scott could never only think about himself. He was an extension of an idea, a cause, a race. He was the mutant struggle. He was the X-Men, whether he really should be or not.
Maybe he just needed a place to mourn his life, and death, and all the fragments that flung out in space from those seismic truths. Maybe it wasn't for mourning, but resolve. A way forward. Maybe he wouldn't feel anything. He hoped he wouldn't feel anything.
His and Oliver's first 'real' date had come after a strange meeting with a version of Sam's ex-wife, so it seemed fitting that their first trip to Sam's old stomping grounds would be burdened with this kind of pilgrimage. It all started out light and even romantic: comfortably on a flight together, leaning against each other's shoulders and talking quietly; landing at Newark, renting a car, sharing new air; Sam playfully offering to drive as though there had been any question who would be behind the wheel.
But Sam grew quieter the closer they got, as he traveled familiar roads and felt himself tugged back in time, into Scott. The moment grew closer -- the moment where a lane should be, but wouldn't, and he would be stranded, both deeply Scott and impossibly Scott.
That home has moved, and been destroyed, and rebuilt, and moved again. But where else could Sam go to look at, well, nothing?
Sam kept thinking of that goddamn mansion, and of the duality of lives and memories, and maybe if he could see that discernible shift in reality -- grasp that the beginning of everything just didn't exist -- he could find some way to process the rift.
Other people seemed to be coping better with their old and new lives. Some seemed so sure that one -- this one -- was more important than the other. But Sam was Scott Summers, and Scott could never only think about himself. He was an extension of an idea, a cause, a race. He was the mutant struggle. He was the X-Men, whether he really should be or not.
Maybe he just needed a place to mourn his life, and death, and all the fragments that flung out in space from those seismic truths. Maybe it wasn't for mourning, but resolve. A way forward. Maybe he wouldn't feel anything. He hoped he wouldn't feel anything.
His and Oliver's first 'real' date had come after a strange meeting with a version of Sam's ex-wife, so it seemed fitting that their first trip to Sam's old stomping grounds would be burdened with this kind of pilgrimage. It all started out light and even romantic: comfortably on a flight together, leaning against each other's shoulders and talking quietly; landing at Newark, renting a car, sharing new air; Sam playfully offering to drive as though there had been any question who would be behind the wheel.
But Sam grew quieter the closer they got, as he traveled familiar roads and felt himself tugged back in time, into Scott. The moment grew closer -- the moment where a lane should be, but wouldn't, and he would be stranded, both deeply Scott and impossibly Scott.
